ReviewBrain sciences2023
The Neural Signatures of Shame, Embarrassment, and Guilt: A Voxel-Based Meta-Analysis on Functional Neuroimaging Studies.
Review in Brain sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-Analysis of Brain Volumetric Abnormalities in Patients with Remitted Major Depressive Disorder.Depression and anxiety · 2024Pooled it
- Identifying the neural mechanisms associated with older adults' dynamic theory of mind judgments during a movie-watching task.Social neuroscience · 2026Article
- Combined DMT-harmine formulation reduces negative self-referential emotions during social self-evaluation: a randomized placebo-controlled trial in healthy volunteers.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Article
- Increased Aperiodic Exponents Track Depression Symptom Severity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Suicidal Distress and Daily Well-Being: A New Model of Social Hysteresis.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Human neurocomputational mechanisms of guilt-driven and shame-driven altruistic behavior.eLife · 2025Article
- The Unseen Burden: Uncovering Shame and Its Determinants in Parkinson's Disease.Movement disorders clinical practice · 2025Article
- Shame and development of self: a relational, cognitive, and linguistic perspective.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Two Sides of the Same Coin in Female Borderline Personality Disorder: Self-Reported Guilt and Shame and Their Neurofunctional Correlates.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Guilt, shame, and embarrassment: similar or different emotions? A comparison between Italians and Americans.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Self-conscious emotions, such as shame and guilt, play a fundamental role in regulating moral behaviour and in promoting the welfare of society. Despite their relevance, the neural bases of these emotions are uncertain. In the present meta-analysis, we performed a systematic literature review in order to single out functional neuroimaging studies on healthy individuals specifically investigating the neural substrates of shame, embarrassment, and guilt. Seventeen studies investigating the neural correlates of shame/embarrassment and seventeen studies investigating guilt brain representation met our inclusion criteria. The analyses revealed that both guilt and shame/embarrassment were associated with the activation of the left anterior insula, involved in emotional awareness processing and arousal. Guilt-specific areas were located within the left temporo-parietal junction, which is thought to be involved in social cognitive processes. Moreover, specific activations for shame/embarrassment involved areas related to social pain (dorsal anterior cingulate and thalamus) and behavioural inhibition (premotor cortex) networks. This pattern of results might reflect the distinct action tendencies associated with the two emotions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.