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愛他的な人と利己的な人には脳内の動きに差がある
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=61312&nfid=rssfeeds
Brain Scan Predicts Difference Between Altruistic And Selfish People
Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience News
Article Date: 22 Jan 2007 - 10:00 PST
脳のスキャンを行って、愛他的な人と利己的な人の間には脳の特定部分の働きに差があることが明らかになった。
これまで、愛他的であることは生存に有利ではないはずなので、その理由が不明であったが、生存に関しての利点は、相手の行動を感知して予測する能力からくると思われる。
この研究ではコンピュータゲームへの参加者を対象に利己的傾向及び愛他的傾向と脳の動きについて調査。ゲームの結果が金銭的報酬になるものと、報酬を慈善的目的に使用するかの選択を実験の前にさせて、脳の動きをfMRIでスキャンした。
その結果は驚くべきものであった。脳の報酬に関する部位の活動が活発化するものと考えたが、脳の別の部位も関与していることが明らかとなった。そこは、何かを自分のため、他人のためにするかの差に極めて敏感である。これはposterior superior temporal cortex (pSTC)といい、後頭部にあって、他人への行動を認識しそれに対する意味付けに関与する。この部位は報酬に焦点を置いていない。
次に、参加者に他人を支援する行動の型と頻度について質問。fMRIの脳スキャンの結果, pSTCの活動が愛他主義のレベルが上がるとともに上昇。
Using brain scans, scientists have found a part of the brain that behaves differently for altruistic and selfish people.
Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the research was conducted at the Duke University Medical Centre in Durham, North Carolina, and will be published in the February 2007 print issue of Nature Neuroscience. An early online edition is now available.
Altruism is defined as a tendency for people to put the welfare of others above their own. And what this research suggests is that altruism stems from being able to tune into the intention and actions of others which then leads to thinking along the lines of "perhaps I had better treat them like I would want to be treated".
Until now scientists have been puzzled by altruism because on the face of it the act offers no survival advantage to the individual.
But perhaps, the survival advantage comes from an ability to perceive the intention of others, and therefore to anticipate their actions.
The researchers invited 45 volunteers to play a computer game and also to watch the computer play the game. In some instances successful completion of the game resulted in them winning money for themselves, and in other instances it resulted in money being donated to a charity each person had chosen at the beginning of the experiment. During these activities the researchers took functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of the participants' brains.
fMRI is a harmless procedure that detects activity in nerve cells in the brain by measuring changes in oxygen levels using magnetic pulses.
The scientists were surprised by the results. They were expecting to see activity in the brain's reward centres.
And for the results to show that people who perform altruistic acts do so because they feel good about it, hence the expected activity in the reward centres.
But what they found was that another part of the brain was also involved, and it was quite sensitive to the difference between doing something for personal gain and doing it for someone else's gain. This part of the brain is called the posterior superior temporal cortex (pSTC). The pSTC sits in the back of the brain and appears to help us tune into perceiving and giving meaning to the actions of others. It is not focused on reward.
In the next stage the scientists asked the participants questions about type and frequency of their altruistic or helping behaviours. They then analysed the responses to generate an estimate of a person's tendency to act altruistically and compared each person's level against their fMRI brain scan.
The results showed that pSTC activity rose in proportion to a person's estimated level of altruism.
The researchers suggest that the study shows that altruistic behaviour may arise from how we view the world rather than how we act in it.
"We believe that the ability to perceive other people's actions as meaningful is critical for altruism," said one of the team.
It could be that understanding the parts of the brain that enable us to give meaning to what we observe around us could help us understand disorders like autism. This research team has already started another project looking at the early development of this part of the brain.
"Altruism is associated with an increased neural response to agency."
Dharol Tankersley, C Jill Stowe, and Scott A Huettel.
Nature Neuroscience Published online: 21 January 2007; doi:10.1038/nn1833
Brain Scan Predicts Difference Between Altruistic And Selfish People
Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience News
Article Date: 22 Jan 2007 - 10:00 PST
脳のスキャンを行って、愛他的な人と利己的な人の間には脳の特定部分の働きに差があることが明らかになった。
これまで、愛他的であることは生存に有利ではないはずなので、その理由が不明であったが、生存に関しての利点は、相手の行動を感知して予測する能力からくると思われる。
この研究ではコンピュータゲームへの参加者を対象に利己的傾向及び愛他的傾向と脳の動きについて調査。ゲームの結果が金銭的報酬になるものと、報酬を慈善的目的に使用するかの選択を実験の前にさせて、脳の動きをfMRIでスキャンした。
その結果は驚くべきものであった。脳の報酬に関する部位の活動が活発化するものと考えたが、脳の別の部位も関与していることが明らかとなった。そこは、何かを自分のため、他人のためにするかの差に極めて敏感である。これはposterior superior temporal cortex (pSTC)といい、後頭部にあって、他人への行動を認識しそれに対する意味付けに関与する。この部位は報酬に焦点を置いていない。
次に、参加者に他人を支援する行動の型と頻度について質問。fMRIの脳スキャンの結果, pSTCの活動が愛他主義のレベルが上がるとともに上昇。
Using brain scans, scientists have found a part of the brain that behaves differently for altruistic and selfish people.
Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the research was conducted at the Duke University Medical Centre in Durham, North Carolina, and will be published in the February 2007 print issue of Nature Neuroscience. An early online edition is now available.
Altruism is defined as a tendency for people to put the welfare of others above their own. And what this research suggests is that altruism stems from being able to tune into the intention and actions of others which then leads to thinking along the lines of "perhaps I had better treat them like I would want to be treated".
Until now scientists have been puzzled by altruism because on the face of it the act offers no survival advantage to the individual.
But perhaps, the survival advantage comes from an ability to perceive the intention of others, and therefore to anticipate their actions.
The researchers invited 45 volunteers to play a computer game and also to watch the computer play the game. In some instances successful completion of the game resulted in them winning money for themselves, and in other instances it resulted in money being donated to a charity each person had chosen at the beginning of the experiment. During these activities the researchers took functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of the participants' brains.
fMRI is a harmless procedure that detects activity in nerve cells in the brain by measuring changes in oxygen levels using magnetic pulses.
The scientists were surprised by the results. They were expecting to see activity in the brain's reward centres.
And for the results to show that people who perform altruistic acts do so because they feel good about it, hence the expected activity in the reward centres.
But what they found was that another part of the brain was also involved, and it was quite sensitive to the difference between doing something for personal gain and doing it for someone else's gain. This part of the brain is called the posterior superior temporal cortex (pSTC). The pSTC sits in the back of the brain and appears to help us tune into perceiving and giving meaning to the actions of others. It is not focused on reward.
In the next stage the scientists asked the participants questions about type and frequency of their altruistic or helping behaviours. They then analysed the responses to generate an estimate of a person's tendency to act altruistically and compared each person's level against their fMRI brain scan.
The results showed that pSTC activity rose in proportion to a person's estimated level of altruism.
The researchers suggest that the study shows that altruistic behaviour may arise from how we view the world rather than how we act in it.
"We believe that the ability to perceive other people's actions as meaningful is critical for altruism," said one of the team.
It could be that understanding the parts of the brain that enable us to give meaning to what we observe around us could help us understand disorders like autism. This research team has already started another project looking at the early development of this part of the brain.
"Altruism is associated with an increased neural response to agency."
Dharol Tankersley, C Jill Stowe, and Scott A Huettel.
Nature Neuroscience Published online: 21 January 2007; doi:10.1038/nn1833
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Latest page update: made by ishida
, Jan 29 2007, 2:04 AM EST
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Keyword tags:
altruistic people
brain
brain scan
fMRI
magnetic pulses
oxygen level
posterior superior
pSTC
selfish people
temporal cortex
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