Canonical correlation analysis of brain prefrontal activity measured by functional near infra-red spectroscopy (fNIRS) during a moral judgment task

• Published in: Behavioural brain research Vol. 359; pp. 73 - 80
• Main Authors: Dashtestani, Hadis, Zaragoza, Rachel, Pirsiavash, Hamed, Knutson, Kristine M., Kermanian, Riley, Cui, Joy, Harrison, J. Douglas, Halem, Milton, Gandjbakhche, Amir
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.02.2019
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Antisocial Personality Disorder - physiopathology; Antisocial Personality Disorder - psychology; Canonical correlation analysis; Decision making; Decision Making - physiology; Functional near-infrared spectroscopy; Functional Neuroimaging - methods; Hemodynamics; Humans; Judgment - physiology; Middle Aged; Moral judgment; Morals; Personality - physiology; Prefrontal cortex; Prefrontal Cortex - physiology; Psychopathic traits; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared - methods; Young Adult; Moral judgment; Prefrontal cortex; Decision making; Functional near-infrared spectroscopy; Psychopathic traits; Canonical correlation analysis
• ISSN: 0166-4328; 1872-7549; 1872-7549
• DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2018.10.022

•Relationship of prefrontal activity in moral judgment (MJ) and psychopathic traits.•Highly correlated factors in personal MJ: coldheartedness, carefree non-planfulness.•In impersonal MJ: Machiavellian egocentricity, rebellious nonconformity. Individuals differ in the extent to which they make decisions in different moral dilemmas. In this study, we investigated the relationship between functional brain activities during moral decision making and psychopathic personality traits in a healthy population. We measured the hemodynamic activities of the brain by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). FNIRS is an evolving non-invasive neuroimaging modality which is relatively inexpensive, patient friendly and robust to subject movement. Psychopathic traits were evaluated through a self-report questionnaire called the Psychopathic Personality Inventory Revised (PPI-R). We recorded functional brain activities of 30 healthy subjects while they performed a moral judgment (MJ) task. Regularized canonical correlation analysis (R-CCA) was applied to find the relationships between activation in different regions of prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the core psychopathic traits. Our results showed a significant canonical correlation between PFC activation and PPI-R content scale (PPI-R-CS). Specifically, coldheartedness and carefree non-planfulness were the only PPI-R-CS factors that were highly correlated with PFC activation during personal (emotionally salient) MJ, while Machiavellian egocentricity, rebellious nonconformity, coldheartedness, and carefree non-planfulness were the core traits that exhibited the same dynamics as PFC activation during impersonal (more logical) MJ. Furthermore, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and left lateral PFC were the most positively correlated regions with PPI-R-CS traits during personal MJ, and the right vmPFC and right lateral PFC in impersonal MJ.