Traumatic Brain Injury: Brain Injury Linked to Moral Decisions

Injuries that damage an area of the brain behind the forehead can drastically affect the way in which people make moral decisions in life-or-death situations. Those with such an injury expressed increased enthusiasm to kill or harm other people if doing so would save the lives of other people. These findings are the strongest evidence that the natural tendency not to hurt others depends upon a part of neural anatomy and that this region evolved before the higher brain regions that are responsible for analysis and planning.

Brain Injury is Linked to Moral Decisions

The researchers who conducted the study say that their sample size was small and that the moral decisions were hypothetical: the research does not predict how people with or without brain injuries actually will perform in real life-or-death situations. However, previous studies have shown that this region of the brain is active in decision making and that damage to it affects moral judgment. Such findings could have implications for legal cases.