Disruption of the right temporoparietal junction with transcranial magnetic stimulation reduces the role of beliefs in moral judgments

A great article in PNAS:

When we judge an action as morally right or wrong, we rely on our capacity to infer the actor's mental states (e.g., beliefs, intentions). Here, we test the hypothesis that the right temporoparietal junction (RTPJ), an area involved in mental state reasoning, is necessary for making moral judgments. In two experiments, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to disrupt neural activity in the RTPJ transiently before moral judgment (experiment 1, offline stimulation) and during moral judgment (experiment 2, online stimulation). In both experiments, TMS to the RTPJ led participants to rely less on the actor's mental states. A particularly striking effect occurred for attempted harms (e.g., actors who intended but failed to do harm): Relative to TMS to a control site, TMS to the RTPJ caused participants to judge attempted harms as less morally forbidden and more morally permissible. Thus, interfering with activity in the RTPJ disrupts the capacity to use mental states in moral judgment, especially in the case of attempted harms.

A controlled study of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation as a treatment of depression in the elderly

PMID: 19589195
TITLE: Top cited papers in international psychogeriatrics: 5. A controlled study of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation as a treatment of depression in the elderly.
AUTHORS: Ricardo E Jorge, Robert G Robinson
AFFILIATION: Department of Psychiatry, Roy J and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, U.S.A. Email: Ricardo-jorge@uiowa.edu.
REFERENCE: Int Psychogeriatr 2009 Oct 21(5):855-60

Brain Stimulation in Depression Blog

There is an interesting weblog of Douglas Mental Health University Institute @ McGill which is certainly interesting for the readers of this Blog. Here is the description:

Marcelo T. Berlim, MD, MSc, a researcher and clinical psychiatrist at the Douglas, presents the latest scientific information regarding the use of brain stimulation techniques in major depression, such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), deep brain stimulation (DBS), transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and vagus nerve stimulation (VNS).
This blog is a resource for mental health professionals, including researchers and is not intended to provide medical consultation/referral and/or personal clinical advices.

You can connect here or in the linklist to the left.