Neural Correlates of Moral Decision-Making in Psychopaths : An fMRI Study

Imagine you see an old lady stumbling and you are the only person who could help her. Would you miss your bus after a long working day and take the next bus that leaves in one hour in order to fulfil a social norm by helping the lady? Each individual is faced with moral conflicts - every day. How individuals decide in certain situations may not only depend on external factors but also on their emotions, their understanding of morality and the neural correlates of moral decision-making. Therefore, patients who are characterised by emotional detachment, antisocial and often immoral behavior - psychopaths - might differ from healthy individuals in their behavior and their neural correlates. The present fMRI study is the first that addresses this question and investigates the neural correlates of everyday moral decision-making in psychopaths.