Steeper social discounting after human basolateral amygdala damage.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Social Cognition
• Behavioral Economics

Background:

• The basolateral amygdala (BLA) is implicated in social preferences.
• Its exact role in prosocial decision-making, particularly concerning social distance, is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of the human BLA in calibrating prosocial behavior.
• To test the hypothesis that the BLA fine-tunes prosociality based on social distance.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a modified dictator game with participants with Urbach-Wiethe disease (UWD) and bilateral BLA damage.
• Compared UWD participants' prosocial choices to matched healthy controls across varying social distances.

Main Results:

• UWD participants exhibited lower overall generosity compared to controls.
• UWD participants demonstrated steeper social discounting, with willingness to share decreasing more rapidly with increasing social distance.
• These differences were not attributable to empathy, personality, or social network size.

Conclusions:

• The BLA is critical for resolving the conflict between self-interest and altruism in social discounting.
• BLA function is essential for model-based social cognition, enabling the calibration of prosocial behavior according to social-emotional distance.