PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Waytz, Adam
AU  - Zaki, Jamil
AU  - Mitchell, Jason P.
TI  - Response of Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex Predicts Altruistic Behavior
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.6193-11.2012
DP  - 2012 May 30
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience
PG  - 7646--7650
VI  - 32
IP  - 22
4099  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/22/7646.short
4100  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/22/7646.full
SO  - J. Neurosci.2012 May 30; 32
AB  - Human beings have an unusual proclivity for altruistic behavior, and recent commentators have suggested that these prosocial tendencies arise from our unique capacity to understand the minds of others (i.e., to mentalize). The current studies test this hypothesis by examining the relation between altruistic behavior and the reflexive engagement of a neural system reliably associated with mentalizing. Results indicated that activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex—a region consistently involved in understanding others' mental states—predicts both monetary donations to others and time spent helping others. These findings address long-standing questions about the proximate source of human altruism by suggesting that prosocial behavior results, in part, from our broader tendency for social-cognitive thought.