Impairment in judgement of the moral emotion guilt following orbitofrontal cortex damage

Abstract

Although neuroimaging studies have provided evidence for an association between moral emotions and the orbitofrontal cortex, studies on patients with focal lesions using experimental probes of moral emotions are scarce. Here, we addressed this topic by presenting a moral emotion judgement task to patients with focal brain damage. Four judgement tasks in a simple pairwise choice paradigm were given to 72 patients with cerebrovascular disease. These tasks consisted of a perceptual line judgement task as a control task; the objects' preference task as a basic preference judgement task; and two types of moral emotion judgement task, an anger task and a guilt task. A multiple linear regression analysis was performed on each set of task performance scores to take into account potential confounders. Performance on the guilt emotion judgement task negatively correlated with the orbitofrontal cortex damage, but not with the other variables. Results for the other judgement tasks did not reach statistical significance. The close association between orbitofrontal cortex damage and a decrease in guilt emotion judgement consistency might suggest that the orbitofrontal cortex plays a key role in the sense of guilt, a hallmark of morality.

A preliminary transcriptomic analysis of the orbitofrontal cortex of antisocial individuals

“…Ample evidence has shown that OFC functional deficits lead to disinhibition, impulsivity, lack of insight, lack of concern with the consequences of one's actions, irresponsibility, social inappropriateness, and deficits in social behavior interpretations 23–27 . Our results point to the possibility that these impairments may be contributed by specific deficits of the glutamatergic cells and astrocytes, possibly resulting in aberrances of the overall histoarchitectural organization of this brain area.…”

“…Ample evidence has shown that OFC functional deficits lead to disinhibition, impulsivity, lack of insight, lack of concern with the consequences of one's actions, irresponsibility, social inappropriateness, and deficits in social behavior interpretations. 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 Our results point to the possibility that these impairments may be contributed by specific deficits of the glutamatergic cells and astrocytes, possibly resulting in aberrances of the overall histoarchitectural organization of this brain area. Future proteomic, functional, and histological studies will be necessary to verify whether antisocial behavior is associated with decreased functions or numbers of pyramidal cells in the OFC, and what specific trait components may be associated with specific transcriptomic signatures.…”

“…OFC lesions lead to behavioral aberrances akin to those observed in antisocial individuals, including disinhibition, social inappropriateness, lack of concern with the consequences of one's action, and poor ability to recognize affective cues 21 . In line with these premises, converging lines of evidence highlight that OFC dysfunctions play a pivotal role in the pathophysiology of ASPD 22 and related personality traits, including aggression, disinhibition, impulsivity, lack of insight, and psychopathy 23–27 . These advances notwithstanding, the neurochemical mechanisms whereby the OFC contributes to the ontogeny of antisocial behavior remain elusive.…”

“… 21 In line with these premises, converging lines of evidence highlight that OFC dysfunctions play a pivotal role in the pathophysiology of ASPD 22 and related personality traits, including aggression, disinhibition, impulsivity, lack of insight, and psychopathy. 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 These advances notwithstanding, the neurochemical mechanisms whereby the OFC contributes to the ontogeny of antisocial behavior remain elusive. To address this knowledge gap, here we conducted the first‐ever transcriptomic analysis of postmortem OFC samples from individuals affected by either ASPD or CD in relation to age‐matched unaffected controls.…”

Definition and attributes of the emotional memory images underlying psychophysiological dis-ease

“…Emotional experiences emerge from distributed activity of various regions of the brain, including areas that subserve general functions ( Lindquist and Barrett, 2008 ; Mackes et al, 2018 ). Subcortical regions of the limbic system are involved in processing implicit emotional memory ( Ghaziri et al, 2018 ); the amygdala is associated with fear ( Rosero et al, 2019 ; Zhang et al, 2020 ), the insula with pain and disgust ( Corradi-Dell’Acqua et al, 2016 ; Riečanský and Lamm, 2019 ) and the orbitofrontal cortex with anger ( Funayama et al, 2019 ). Hippocampal damage may result in the loss of residual emotional components associated with previous traumatic events ( Gulyaeva, 2019 ).…”