From DNA to Social Cognition

Dr. Richard Ebstein (Editor) is one of the leaders in the field of personality genetics and human behavioral genetics. He is Professor and head of the Scheinfeld Center at the Hebrew University. He has published widely and his work was recently highlighted in a Science magazine issue devoted to behavioral genetics [Holden C (2008) Parsing the genetics of behavior. Science 322(5903):892-895].

Decision-making is an integral part of our daily lives. Researchers seek a complete understanding of the decision-making process, including the biological and social basis and the impact of our decisions. From DNA to Social Cognition fills a gap in the literature that brings together the methods, perspectives, and knowledge of the geneticists, neuroscientists, economists, and psychologists that are integral to this field of research. The editors' unique expertise ensures an integrated and complete compilation of materials that will prove useful to researchers and scientists interested in social cognition and decision-making.

Contributors viiIntroduction 1Richard P. Ebstein, Mikhail Monakhov, Poh San Lai, and Simone G. Shamay-TsooryPART 1 EMPATHY: NEURAL BASES AND GENETIC CORRELATES 191.1 Genes Related to Autistic Traits and Empathy 21Bhismadev Chakrabarti and Simon Baron-Cohen1.2 The Behavioral Genetics of Human Pair Bonding 37Hasse Walum and Lars Westberg1.3 Brain Networks Supporting Empathy 47Martin Schulte-Rüther and Ellen Greimel1.4 The Human Mirror Neuron System and Social Cognition 63Sook-Lei Liew and Lisa Aziz-Zadeh1.5 Motivational Aspects of Future Thinking in the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex 81Arnaud D'ArgembeauPART 2 MORAL NEUROSCIENCE AND EMOTION 912.1 Contributions of the Prefrontal Cortex to Social Cognition and Moral Judgment Processes 93Chad E. Forbes, Joshua C. Poore, and Jordan Grafman2.2 Emotion and Moral Cognition 111Michael Koenigs2.3 The Neuroanatomical Basis of Moral Cognition and Emotion 123Roland Zahn, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, and Jorge Moll2.4 Envy and Schadenfreude: The Neural Correlates of Competitive Emotions 139Jonathan Dvash and Simone G. Shamay-TsooryPART 3 Genes and Decision Making 1573.1 The Somatic Marker Framework and the Neurological Basis of Decision Making 159Antoine Bechara3.2 A Model of the Initial Stages of Drug Abuse: From Reinforcement Learning to Social Contagion 185Gilly Koritzky, Adi Luria, and Eldad Yechiam3.3 Extrinsic Effects and Models of Dominance Hierarchy Formation 203Matthew Druen and Lee Alan Dugatkin3.4 Complex Social Cognition and the Appreciation of Social Norms in Psychiatric Disorders: Insights from Evolutionary Game Theory 215Martin Brüne and Julia Wischniewski3.5 From Neuroeconomics to Genetics: The Intertemporal Choices Case as an Example 233Itzhak Aharon and Sacha Bourgeois-GirondeIndex 245