Neural circuits in the brain that are activated when mitigating criminal sentences

Makiko Yamada (), Colin Camerer (), Saori Fujie, Motoichiro Kato, Tetsuya Matsuda, Harumasa Takano, Hiroshi Ito, Tetsuya Suhara and Hidehiko Takahashi ()
Additional contact information
Makiko Yamada: Molecular Imaging Center, National Institute of Radiological Sciences
Saori Fujie: Molecular Imaging Center, National Institute of Radiological Sciences
Motoichiro Kato: Keio University School of Medicine
Tetsuya Matsuda: Tamagawa University Brain Science Institute
Harumasa Takano: Molecular Imaging Center, National Institute of Radiological Sciences
Hiroshi Ito: Molecular Imaging Center, National Institute of Radiological Sciences
Tetsuya Suhara: Molecular Imaging Center, National Institute of Radiological Sciences
Hidehiko Takahashi: Molecular Imaging Center, National Institute of Radiological Sciences

Nature Communications, 2012, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract In sentencing guilty defendants, jurors and judges weigh 'mitigating circumstances', which create sympathy for a defendant. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure neural activity in ordinary citizens who are potential jurors, as they decide on mitigation of punishment for murder. We found that sympathy activated regions associated with mentalising and moral conflict (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, precuneus and temporo-parietal junction). Sentencing also activated precuneus and anterior cingulate cortex, suggesting that mitigation is based on negative affective responses to murder, sympathy for mitigating circumstances and cognitive control to choose numerical punishments. Individual differences on the inclination to mitigate, the sentence reduction per unit of judged sympathy, correlated with activity in the right middle insula, an area known to represent interoception of visceral states. These results could help the legal system understand how potential jurors actually decide, and contribute to growing knowledge about whether emotion and cognition are integrated sensibly in difficult judgments.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1757 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:3:y:2012:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms1757

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1757

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().