A Role for the Medial Temporal Lobe Subsystem in Guiding Prosociality: the Effect of Episodic Processes on Willingness to Help Others

Overview

Journal Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci

Specialties Neurology
Social Sciences

Date 2019 Feb 28

PMID 30809675

Citations 11

Authors

Brendan Gaesser

Josh Hirschfeld-Kroen

Emily A Wasserman

Mary Horn

Liane Young

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Why are we willing to help others? Recent behavioral work on episodic processes (i.e. the ability to represent an event that is specific in time and place) suggests that imagining and remembering scenes of helping a person in need increases intentions to help. Here, we provide insight into the cognitive and neural mechanisms that enhance prosocial intentions via episodic simulation and memory. In Experiment 1, we scanned participants using functional neuroimaging as they imagined and remembered helping episodes, and completed non-episodic control conditions accounting for exposure to the story of need and conceptual priming of helping. Analyses revealed that activity in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) subsystem, as well as the right temporoparietal junction (RTPJ) predicted the effect of conditions on the strength of prosocial intentions. In Experiment 2, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt activity in the RTPJ, and better isolate the contribution of MTL subsystem to prosocial intentions. The effect of conditions on willingness to help remained even when activity in the RTPJ was disrupted, suggesting that activity in the MTL subsystem may primarily support this prosocial effect. It seems our willingness to help may be guided, in part, by how easily we can construct imagined and remembered helping episodes.

Citing Articles

Our ways will not change: Future collective continuity increases present prosocial considerations.

Simic A, Sacchi S, Perugini M Br J Soc Psychol. 2024; 64(1):e12847.

PMID: 39737879 PMC: 11687412. DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12847.

The involvement of rTPJ in intention attribution during social decision making: A TMS study.

Panico F, Ferrara A, Sagliano L, Trojano L Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2024; 24(4):755-765.

PMID: 38689164 PMC: 11233285. DOI: 10.3758/s13415-024-01188-7.

Entorhinal grid-like codes and time-locked network dynamics track others navigating through space.

Wagner I, Graichen L, Todorova B, Luttig A, Omer D, Stangl M Nat Commun. 2023; 14(1):231.

PMID: 36720865 PMC: 9889810. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-35819-3.

The power of negative and positive episodic memories.

Williams S, Ford J, Kensinger E Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2022; 22(5):869-903.

PMID: 35701665 PMC: 9196161. DOI: 10.3758/s13415-022-01013-z.

Moral psychology from the lab to the wild: Relief registries as a paradigm for studying real-world altruism.

OConnor B, Lee K, Campbell D, Young L PLoS One. 2022; 17(6):e0269469.

PMID: 35696389 PMC: 9191725. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0269469.

References

Robin J, Wynn J, Moscovitch M . The spatial scaffold: The effects of spatial context on memory for events. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2015; 42(2):308-15. DOI: 10.1037/xlm0000167. View

Tamir D, Bricker A, Dodell-Feder D, Mitchell J . Reading fiction and reading minds: the role of simulation in the default network. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2015; 11(2):215-24. PMC: 4733342. DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsv114. View

Mars R, Sallet J, Neubert F, Rushworth M . Connectivity profiles reveal the relationship between brain areas for social cognition in human and monkey temporoparietal cortex. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013; 110(26):10806-11. PMC: 3696774. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1302956110. View

Szpunar K, Watson J, McDermott K . Neural substrates of envisioning the future. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007; 104(2):642-7. PMC: 1761910. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0610082104. View

Gaesser B, Schacter D . Episodic simulation and episodic memory can increase intentions to help others. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014; 111(12):4415-20. PMC: 3970486. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1402461111. View

Waytz A, Zaki J, Mitchell J . Response of dorsomedial prefrontal cortex predicts altruistic behavior. J Neurosci. 2012; 32(22):7646-50. PMC: 3387686. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.6193-11.2012. View

van Mulukom V, Schacter D, Corballis M, Addis D . Re-imagining the future: repetition decreases hippocampal involvement in future simulation. PLoS One. 2013; 8(7):e69596. PMC: 3720617. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0069596. View

Slotnick S, Moo L, Segal J, Hart Jr J . Distinct prefrontal cortex activity associated with item memory and source memory for visual shapes. Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2003; 17(1):75-82. DOI: 10.1016/s0926-6410(03)00082-x. View

Rameson L, Morelli S, Lieberman M . The neural correlates of empathy: experience, automaticity, and prosocial behavior. J Cogn Neurosci. 2011; 24(1):235-45. DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_00130. View

10.

DArgembeau A, Raffard S, Van der Linden M . Remembering the past and imagining the future in schizophrenia. J Abnorm Psychol. 2008; 117(1):247-51. DOI: 10.1037/0021-843X.117.1.247. View

11.

Judd C, Westfall J, Kenny D . Treating stimuli as a random factor in social psychology: a new and comprehensive solution to a pervasive but largely ignored problem. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2012; 103(1):54-69. DOI: 10.1037/a0028347. View

12.

Madore K, Szpunar K, Addis D, Schacter D . Episodic specificity induction impacts activity in a core brain network during construction of imagined future experiences. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016; 113(38):10696-701. PMC: 5035866. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1612278113. View

13.

Andrews-Hanna J, Reidler J, Sepulcre J, Poulin R, Buckner R . Functional-anatomic fractionation of the brain's default network. Neuron. 2010; 65(4):550-62. PMC: 2848443. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2010.02.005. View

14.

Marsh A . Neural, cognitive, and evolutionary foundations of human altruism. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci. 2015; 7(1):59-71. DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1377. View

15.

De Brigard F, Addis D, Ford J, Schacter D, Giovanello K . Remembering what could have happened: neural correlates of episodic counterfactual thinking. Neuropsychologia. 2013; 51(12):2401-14. PMC: 3919504. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.01.015. View

16.

Benoit R, Schacter D . Specifying the core network supporting episodic simulation and episodic memory by activation likelihood estimation. Neuropsychologia. 2015; 75:450-7. PMC: 4546530. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.06.034. View

17.

Schiller D, Eichenbaum H, Buffalo E, Davachi L, Foster D, Leutgeb S . Memory and Space: Towards an Understanding of the Cognitive Map. J Neurosci. 2015; 35(41):13904-11. PMC: 6608181. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2618-15.2015. View

18.

Atance C, ONeill D . Episodic future thinking. Trends Cogn Sci. 2001; 5(12):533-539. DOI: 10.1016/s1364-6613(00)01804-0. View

19.

Tavares R, Mendelsohn A, Grossman Y, Williams C, Shapiro M, Trope Y . A Map for Social Navigation in the Human Brain. Neuron. 2015; 87(1):231-43. PMC: 4662863. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.06.011. View

20.

Hassabis D, Nathan Spreng R, Rusu A, Robbins C, Mar R, Schacter D . Imagine all the people: how the brain creates and uses personality models to predict behavior. Cereb Cortex. 2013; 24(8):1979-87. PMC: 4089378. DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bht042. View