ArticleNature human behaviour2024
Human ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary for prosocial motivation.
Article in Nature human behaviour, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- Early life adversity shapes neural and behavioural responses to oxytocin during altruistic decision-making.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Bimodal social capital associated with psychosocial profiles and brain network topology in a Japanese population.Scientific reports · 2026Article
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- Temporal interference stimulation for deep brain neuromodulation in humans.Nature biomedical engineering · 2026Review
- Article
- The social dimension of apathy: evidence for a distinct domain from 11,243 individuals across health and neurocognitive disorders.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- The neural basis of prosocial effort-based decision making in older adults at risk for Alzheimer's disease.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Dopamine Boosts Motivation for Prosocial Effort in Parkinson's Disease.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neural Bases of Collective Social Behavior and Group Interactions across Species.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Humans are more prosocial in poor foraging environments.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Unruptured anterior communicating artery aneurysms surgery: preservation of an old-fashioned, but ever-precious craft.Neurosurgical review · 2026Article
- Map-like representations of emotion knowledge in hippocampal-prefrontal systems.Nature communications · 2026Article
- From hidden springs to endless oceans: exploring the complementary roles of the amygdala and hippocampus in phenomenal experience.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Frontal Disorders and Consciousness: A Review.Current neurology and neuroscience reports · 2025Review
- Ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions disrupt learning to reward others.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2025Article
- Brain Mapping of Behavior Contagion Based on Visibility Graph Analysis of ERP Signals.Basic and clinical neuroscience · 2025Article
- Culture and Behaviour Management of Children in the Dental Clinic: A Scoping Review.Dentistry journal · 2025Review
- Dorsomedial and ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions differentially impact social influence and temporal discounting.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Moral emotions in mental health: regulation and mediation.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Novel behavioral tasks for the measurement of social motivation in mice: a comparison across strains.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is vital for decision-making. Functional neuroimaging links vmPFC to processing rewards and effort, while parallel work suggests vmPFC involvement in prosocial behaviour. However, the necessity of vmPFC for these functions is unknown. Patients with rare focal vmPFC lesions (n = 25), patients with lesions elsewhere (n = 15) and healthy controls (n = 40) chose between rest and exerting effort to earn rewards for themselves or another person. vmPFC damage decreased prosociality across behavioural and computational measures. vmPFC patients earned less, discounted rewards by effort more, and exerted less force when another person benefited, compared to both control groups. Voxel-based lesion mapping revealed dissociations between vmPFC subregions. While medial damage led to antisocial behaviour, lateral damage increased prosocial behaviour relative to patients with damage elsewhere. vmPFC patients also showed reduced effort sensitivity overall, but reward sensitivity was limited to specific subregions. These results reveal multiple causal contributions of vmPFC to prosocial behaviour, effort and reward.
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