Huge thanks 🫶🏼 to my supervisors @thepsychologist.bsky.social @toddvogel.bsky.social el.bsky.social and to all exceptional collaborators @mgarvert.bsky.social t.bsky.social @lei-zhang.bsky.social @drjocutler.bsky.social @masudhusain.bsky.social & Sanjay Manohar.

Together, these findings provide causal evidence linking specific mPFC subregions to social and economic decision-making.

Damage to vmPFC and ventral striatum is associated with increased temporal impulsivity

Exploratory VLSM analyses linked this heightened temporal impulsivity to damage in the vmPFC (areas 13 and 25) and the ventral striatum.

mPFC lesions increase impulsivity but not uncertainty at baseline

mPFC damage also led to greater baseline temporal impulsivity (i.e., steeper discounting of future rewards) compared to HCs, without affecting preference uncertainty.

Damage specifically to dmPFC is associated with heightened susceptibility to impulsive social influence

VLSM analysis revealed that this enhanced susceptibility to impulsive (vs patient) social influence was specifically associated with damage to the dmPFC (including area 9).

Damage to mPFC enhances susceptibility to impulsive social influence

We examined their susceptibility to social influence using signed Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence.

We found that participants with mPFC damage were more influenced by impulsive (vs patient) others, compared to HCs.

Participants completed a delegated inter-temporal choice task and learned the preferences of simulated impulsive and patient others. Bayesian models quantified preferences and susceptibility to social influence, while voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) linked brain regions to behaviour.

We recruited three groups of participants: an unusually large group of rare participants with focal lesions to the mPFC (N=33), participants with brain damage elsewhere (lesion controls, LC; N=17), and age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HC; N=71).

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) plays a crucial role in human decision-making, particularly in social interactions and economic choices. However, it remains unclear whether distinct subregions of the mPFC serve specific functions in these domains.

Here we review recent findings in neuroeconomics, elucidating the psychological, computational, developmental, and neural mechanisms that underpin social influence during value-based decision-making.