Agent-Specific Responses in the Cingulate Cortex During Economic Exchanges

Interactions with other responsive agents lie at the core of all social exchange. During a social exchange with a partner, one fundamental variable that must be computed correctly is who gets credit for a shared outcome; this assignment is crucial for deciding on an optimal level of cooperation that avoids simple exploitation. We carried out an iterated, two-person economic exchange and made simultaneous hemodynamic measurements from each player's brain. These joint measurements revealed agent-specific responses in the social domain (“me” and “not me”) arranged in a systematic spatial pattern along the cingulate cortex. This systematic response pattern did not depend on metrical aspects of the exchange, and it disappeared completely in the absence of a responding partner.

[1]  Jonathan D. Cohen,et al.  The Neural Basis of Economic Decision-Making in the Ultimatum Game , 2003, Science.

[2]  M. Nowak,et al.  Tit for tat in heterogeneous populations , 1992, Nature.

[3]  Matthew D. Lieberman,et al.  Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion , 2003, Science.

[4]  Carol A. Seger,et al.  Cortical Activations during judgments about the self and an other person , 2004, Neuropsychologia.

[5]  M. Delgado,et al.  Perceptions of moral character modulate the neural systems of reward during the trust game , 2005, Nature Neuroscience.

[7]  J. Decety,et al.  A PET Investigation of the Attribution of Intentions with a Nonverbal Task , 2000, NeuroImage.

[8]  G. Fink,et al.  Neural correlates of the first-person-perspective , 2003, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[9]  M. Botvinick,et al.  Anterior cingulate cortex, error detection, and the online monitoring of performance. , 1998, Science.

[10]  Meghana Bhatt,et al.  Self-Referential Thinking and Equilibrium as States of Mind in Games: Fmri Evidence , 2005, Games Econ. Behav..

[11]  Daniel Houser,et al.  A functional imaging study of cooperation in two-person reciprocal exchange , 2001, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[12]  Erkki Oja,et al.  Independent Component Analysis , 2001 .

[13]  D. Wilkin,et al.  Neuron , 2001, Brain Research.

[14]  R. Trivers.  The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism , 1971, The Quarterly Review of Biology.

[15]  W. Hamilton.  The genetical evolution of social behaviour. I. , 1964, Journal of theoretical biology.

[16]  M. Jeannerod,et al.  Beyond Consciousness of External Reality: A “Who” System for Consciousness of Action and Self-Consciousness , 1998, Consciousness and Cognition.

[17]  R. Knight,et al.  Prefrontal–cingulate interactions in action monitoring , 2000, Nature Neuroscience.

[18]  W. Hamilton,et al.  The Evolution of Cooperation , 1984 .

[19]  D. H Weissman,et al.  Conflict monitoring in the human anterior cingulate cortex during selective attention to global and local object features , 2003, NeuroImage.

[20]  M. P Milham,et al.  Practice-related effects demonstrate complementary roles of anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortices in attentional control , 2003, NeuroImage.

[21]  Jonathan D. Cohen,et al.  Conflict monitoring versus selection-for-action in anterior cingulate cortex , 1999, Nature.

[22]  Lars Kai Hansen,et al.  Mining the posterior cingulate: Segregation between memory and pain components , 2005, NeuroImage.

[23]  C. N. Macrae,et al.  Finding the Self? An Event-Related fMRI Study , 2002, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[24]  M. Botvinick,et al.  Parsing executive processes: strategic vs. evaluative functions of the anterior cingulate cortex. , 2000, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[25]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  Errors in reward prediction are re£ected in the event-related brain potential , 2003 .

[26]  Jonathan D. Cohen,et al.  An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment , 2001, Science.

[27]  Israel Liberzon,et al.  Habituation of Rostral Anterior Cingulate Cortex to Repeated Emotionally Salient Pictures , 2003, Neuropsychopharmacology.

[28]  Andrew N. Meltzoff,et al.  The neural bases of cooperation and competition: an fMRI investigation , 2004, NeuroImage.

[29]  T. Shallice,et al.  Human cingulate cortex and autonomic control: converging neuroimaging and clinical evidence. , 2003, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[30]  J. Winn,et al.  Brain , 1878, The Lancet.

[31]  Mukesh Dhamala,et al.  Hyperscanning : Simultaneous fMRI during Linked Social Interactions , 2001 .

[32]  D. D. de Quervain,et al.  The Neural Basis of Altruistic Punishment , 2004, Science.

[33]  宁北芳,et al.  疟原虫var基因转换速率变化导致抗原变异[英]／Paul H, Robert P, Christodoulou Z, et al//Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A , 2005 .

[34]  G. Glover,et al.  Reflecting upon Feelings: An fMRI Study of Neural Systems Supporting the Attribution of Emotion to Self and Other , 2004, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[35]  G. Pagnoni,et al.  A Neural Basis for Social Cooperation , 2002, Neuron.

[36]  Matthew D. Lieberman,et al.  Evidence-based and intuition-based self-knowledge: an FMRI study. , 2004, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[37]  M. Brüne.  "Theory of mind" in schizophrenia: a review of the literature. , 2005, Schizophrenia bulletin.

[38]  C. Frith,et al.  Interacting minds--a biological basis. , 1999, Science.

[39]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  The neural basis of human error processing: reinforcement learning, dopamine, and the error-related negativity. , 2002, Psychological review.

[40]  C. Frith,et al.  Reading the mind in cartoons and stories: an fMRI study of ‘theory of mind’ in verbal and nonverbal tasks , 2000, Neuropsychologia.

[41]  K. Zilles,et al.  Mind Reading: Neural Mechanisms of Theory of Mind and Self-Perspective , 2001, NeuroImage.

[42]  Stephen M Kosslyn,et al.  Deficits in visual cognition and attention following bilateral anterior cingulotomy , 2001, Neuropsychologia.

[43]  A. Damasio,et al.  Subcortical and cortical brain activity during the feeling of self-generated emotions , 2000, Nature Neuroscience.

[44]  Uta Frith,et al.  The Biological Basis of Social Interaction , 2001 .

[45]  M. Posner,et al.  Cognitive and emotional influences in anterior cingulate cortex , 2000, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[46]  D Hemsley,et al.  Verbal self-monitoring and auditory verbal hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia , 2001, Psychological Medicine.

[47]  J. Allman,et al.  Intuition and autism: a possible role for Von Economo neurons , 2005, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[48]  J. O'Doherty,et al.  Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others , 2006, Nature.

[49]  N. Alpert,et al.  Anger in healthy men: a PET study using script-driven imagery , 1999, Biological Psychiatry.

[50]  S. Baron-Cohen,et al.  Autism: a window onto the development of the social and the analytic brain. , 2005, Annual review of neuroscience.

[51]  James K Rilling,et al.  The neural correlates of theory of mind within interpersonal interactions , 2004, NeuroImage.

[52]  D. Perrett,et al.  Being the target of another’s emotion: a PET study , 2003, Neuropsychologia.

[53]  Andrzej Cichocki,et al.  Adaptive blind signal and image processing , 2002 .

[54]  S. Quartz,et al.  Getting to Know You: Reputation and Trust in a Two-Person Economic Exchange , 2005, Science.

[55]  M. Bushnell,et al.  Pain affect encoded in human anterior cingulate but not somatosensory cortex. , 1997, Science.