The Causal Role of Right Frontopolar Cortex in Moral Judgment, Negative Emotion Induction, and Executive Control

Converging evidence suggests that both emotional and cognitive processes are critically involved in moral judgment, and may be mediated by discrete parts of the prefrontal cortex. The current study aimed at investigating the mediatory effect of right Frontopolar Cortex (rFPC) on the way that emotions affect moral judgments.

Six adult patients affected by rFPC and 10 healthy controls were included in the study. Participants made judgements on moral dilemmas after being shown either neutral or emotional pictures. The role of rFPC in executive control and emotional experience was also examined.

The study results showed that inducing an emotional state increased the number of utilitarian responses both in the patients and controls. However, no significant differences were observed between the patients and controls in response time or the number of utilitarian responses. Also, no significant differences were observed in personal and impersonal dilemmas before and after the emotion induction in intergroup comparisons. Results of the executive control tasks showed reduced performance in patients affected by rFPC compared with the controls.

The results of the current study suggested that rFPC might not have a direct role in mediating emotional processes during moral judgments, but possibly this region is important in a network supporting executive control functions.