Research groups at Kobe University Graduate School, Nagoya University Graduate School, Aichi Medical University, and Kochi University of Technology respond to "commitment signals" from friends, and the value of relationships with friends is the same as calculating overall economic value. It was clarified that it was judged in the orbital frontal cortex, which is the site.

 Spending time and paying attention to friends is a sign of commitment to interpersonal relationships and is called a "commit signal."This signal makes you think that your relationship with the other person is more important.This time, we investigated the brain region that determines the value of the relationship with the other party in response to this commitment signal.

 Twenty-two men and women in their twenties participated in the experiment.FMRI (functional MRI) was used to measure brain function. Create 20 different scenes (such as "going to eat with a friend on your birthday"), and each one has a scene where a friend buys a meal (a friend's financial "cost") and a verbal blessing. There are three types of branching scenarios: a scene where you can do something (“no cost”) and a scene where you don't say anything (“no signal”).We asked them to imagine these 22 kinds of scenes as separate events and verified the activity state of the brain.

 As a result of the experiment, activity was observed in the orbitofrontal cortex, which was the strongest in the "cost" scenario and the weakest in the "no signal" scenario.It was found that this brain part is a part that calculates economic value, and the value of relationships may be calculated in the same way as economic value.

 Furthermore, in this experiment, it was shown that the higher the feeling of loneliness, the weaker the activity of the orbitofrontal cortex, which is for further study.With the progress of research, it is expected that the mechanism for building better interpersonal relationships will be elucidated.

Paper information:[Social Neuroscience] Role of the orbitofrontal cortex in the computation of relationship value

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