قضاوت اخلاقي در بيماران دچار آسيب قشر پيش پيشاني راست

Moral Judgments among Patients with Right Prefrontal Cortex Lesion

Objective: Brain areas related to moral judgment have been assessed in the field of ethics; and the causative role between brain damage and moral judgment has been assessed in the field of neuropsychology. However, the role of prefrontal cortex in morality has not been described. The aim of the present study is to examine damage in right prefrontal cortex (rPFC) and its effects on moral judgments. Method: Six patients with damage to rPFC and six normal individuals (matched by sex and age) participated in this study. The patients had encephalomalacia due to injury or tumor resection. The precise location of the damage was determined using MRI and based on Brodmannʹs brain map. Subjects responded to moral dilemmas which had been translated for the first time in Iran. After the pilot study, the dilemmas were administered using the computer. Results: The patient and the normal group did not differ in the response time to dilemmas. Also, regarding the context of responses, even though the patient group had given less positive answers the difference was not statistically significant. Conclusion: It seems that damage to right prefrontal cortex, especially the frontopolar cortex does not affect personal and impersonal moral judgments.