Our willingness to help others is governed by a specific brain region pinpointed by researchers in a study of patients with brain damage to that region. Learning about where in the brain 'helping' decisions are made is important for understanding how people might be motivated to tackle large global challenges, such as climate change, infectious disease and international conflict. It is also essential for finding new approaches to treating disorders of social interactions.
The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour , was carried out by researchers at the University of Birmingham and the University of Oxford, and shows for the first time how a region called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) has a critical role in helping, or 'prosocial' behaviors. Prosocial behaviors are essential for addressing global challenges. Yet helping others is often effortful and humans are averse to effort.
Understanding how effortful helping decisions are processed in the brain is extremely important." Professor Patricia Lockwood, Lead Author In the study, the researchers focused on the vmPFC, a region located right at the front of the brain, which is known to be important for decision-making and other executive functions. Previous studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI scanning) have linked the vmPFC to choices that involve a trade-off between the rewards available and the effort required to obtain rewards.
However, these techniques cannot show whether a part of the brain is esse.
