Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Bergamo, Piazzale Sant'Agostino 2, Bergamo 24129, Italy.
School of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano-Bicocca, Via Cadore 48, Monza (MB) 20900, Italy.
Cereb Cortex. 2023 May 24;33(11):7120-7135. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhad025.
Despite the ubiquitous interdependence between one's own decisions and others' welfare, and the controversial evidence on the behavioral effect of choosing for others, the neural bases of making decisions for another versus oneself remain unexplored. We investigated whether loss aversion (LA; the tendency to avoid losses over approaching equivalent gains) is modulated by (i) choosing for oneself, other individuals, or both; (ii) knowing or not knowing the other recipients; or (iii) an interaction between these factors. We used fMRI to assess the brain activations associated with choosing whether to accept or reject mixed gambles, either for oneself, for another player, or both, in 2 groups of 28 participants who had or had not briefly interacted with the other players before scanning. Participants displayed higher LA for choices involving their payoff compared with those affecting only the payoff of other, known, players. This "social" modulation of decision-making was found to engage the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and its inhibitory connectivity to the middle cingulate cortex. This pattern might underpin decision-making for known others via self-other distinction processes associated with dorsomedial prefrontal areas, with this in turn promoting the inhibition of socially oriented responses through the downregulation of the midcingulate node of the empathy network.
尽管人们自己的决策与他人的福利之间存在普遍的相互依存关系，而且关于为他人做选择的行为影响也存在争议，但为他人做决策与为自己做决策的神经基础仍未得到探索。我们研究了在以下情况下，损失厌恶（LA；避免损失的倾向超过接近同等收益）是否会受到调节：（i）为自己、他人或两者做出选择；（ii）知道或不知道其他接受者；或（iii）这些因素之间的相互作用。我们使用 fMRI 来评估与选择接受或拒绝混合赌博相关的大脑激活，这些赌博可以是为自己、为另一个玩家或两者而选择，涉及两组 28 名参与者，这些参与者在扫描前要么与其他玩家进行了短暂的互动，要么没有进行互动。与仅影响其他已知玩家的收益相比，参与者在涉及自己收益的选择中表现出更高的 LA。这种“社会”决策调节被发现涉及背内侧前额叶皮层及其对中扣带皮层的抑制性连接。这种模式可能通过与背内侧前额叶区域相关的自我与他人区分过程来支持对已知他人的决策，这反过来又通过同理心网络的中扣带节点的下调来促进对社交导向反应的抑制。
