Frank Krueger

George Mason University | GMU · School of Systems Biology

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a member of the neurotrophin family, promotes survival and synaptic plasticity in the human brain. The Val66Met polymorphism of the BDNF gene interferes with intracellular trafficking, packaging, and regulated secretion of this neurotrophin. The human prefrontal cortex (PFC) shows lifelong neuroplastic adap...

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to a set of competencies that are essential features of human social life. Although the neural substrates of EI are virtually unknown, it is well established that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a crucial role in human social-emotional behavior. We studied a unique sample of combat veterans from the Vietnam Head...

Trust is a critical social process that helps us to cooperate with others and is present to some degree in all human interaction. However, the underlying brain mechanisms of conditional and unconditional trust in social reciprocal exchange are still obscure. Here, we used hyperfunctional magnetic resonance imaging, in which two strangers interacted...

Social networks are fundamental for social interactions, with the social brain hypothesis positing that the size of the neocortex evolved to meet social demands. However, the role of fractional anisotropy (FA) in white matter (WM) tracts relevant to mentalizing, empathy, and social networks remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the relati...

Anxiety significantly impacts reciprocal behavior, crucial for positive social interactions. The neurocomputational mechanisms of anxiety's effects on the core (individual propensity) and peripheral (decision context) factors shaping reciprocity remain unclear. Here, we investigated reciprocity in individuals with low and high trait anxiety using a...

Altruism is a type of prosocial behavior that is carried out in the absence of personal benefit or even at an expense to self. Trait altruism varies greatly across individuals, and the reasons for this variability are still not fully understood. Growing evidence suggests that altruism may be partly determined by the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene, w...

A recent neuropsychoeconomic model of trust propensity argues that an individual uses economic (executive functions) and social (social cognition) rationality strategies to transform the risk of treachery (affect) into positive expectations of reciprocity, promoting trust in another person. Previous studies have shown that the trust of older adults...

Trust and reciprocity are fundamental for the cohesion and stability of human society, as they are essential components of cooperative exchange [...]

Trust and reciprocity have paramount importance in cooperative relationships. The influence of psychological effects such as framing and anchoring on trust and reciprocity has been investigated; however, the impact of an order effect on them is still unexplored. The goal of our study was to examine how order impacts the framing of trust and recipro...

Oxytocin has been proposed to regulate human trust. Previous experiments supported this claim by demonstrating that exogenous and endogenous oxytocin is associated with trust (how much trust people place in strangers) and reciprocity (how much people reciprocate when trusted). However, recent replication attempts have been unsuccessful in demonstra...

Trust and reciprocity promote cooperation and are key elements of a successful social life. This study investigated the framing effects on trust and reciprocity behaviors. Using an iterated one-shot within-subjects design, this study explored how trust and reciprocity decisions changed when the game was framed in terms of a give (i.e., using a stan...

Inferring resting-state functional connectivity (FC) from anatomical brain wiring, known as structural connectivity (SC), is of enormous significance in neuroscience for understanding biological neuronal networks and treating mental diseases. Both SC and FC are networks where the nodes are brain regions, and in SC, the edges are the physical fiber...

Background The social representation theory states that individual differences in reciprocity decisions are composed of a stable central core (i.e., reciprocity propensity, RP) and a contextual-dependent periphery (i.e., sensitivity to the framing effect; SFE, the effect by how the decision is presented). However, the neural underpinnings that expl...

As the predominant paradigm in honesty research traces back the difference between honesty and dishonesty to the engagement of cognitive control-a proxy for deliberative processes indicative of one's "true" moral nature-empirical research has mainly focused on proving the recruitment of cognitive control mechanisms in honesty/dishonesty. In PNAS (1...

People who consider themselves moral sometimes use self‐serving justifications to rationalize their selfish behaviours. Previous studies have tested the role of ambiguity in justifying wrongdoings, but it remains unclear whether ambiguity also plays a role in justifying promise‐breaking behaviour and whether heterogeneity exists. To investigate jus...

Background Fear of negative evaluation (FNE), referring to negative expectation and feelings toward other people’s social evaluation, is closely associated with social anxiety that plays an important role in our social life. Exploring the neural markers of FNE may be of theoretical and practical significance to psychiatry research ( e.g ., studies...

Psychopathy is a recognized risk factor for moral violations, but the mechanism of that increased risk is not well understood. Here, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how psychopathic traits were related to the temporal dynamics of moral judgments when participants were asked to give moral acceptability ratings during the visua...

Second-party punishment (SPP) and third-party punishment (TPP) are two basic forms of costly punishment that play an essential role in maintaining social orders. Despite scientific breakthroughs in understanding that costly punishment is driven by an integration of the wrongdoers’ intention and the outcome of their actions, so far, few studies have...

Background Damage to cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) circuits is associated with the development of repetitive behaviours in animals and humans. However, the types of repetitive behaviours that are developed after injury to these structures are poorly defined. This study examines the effect of damage to separate elements of CSTC circuits su...

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a social-cognitive skill that allows the understanding of the intentions, beliefs, and desires of others. There is a distinction between affective and cognitive ToM, with evidence showing that these processes rely on partially distinct neural networks. The role of the cerebellum in social cognition has only been rarely explo...

Psychopathic traits have been demonstrated to be associated with different moral foundations. However, the neuropsychological mechanism underlying the relationship between psychopathic traits and moral foundations remains obscure. Our study examined the effective connectivity (EC) of psychopathy-related brain regions and its association with endors...

To understand how to improve interactions with dog-like robots, we evaluated the importance of “dog-like” framing and physical appearance on interaction, hypothesizing multiple interactive benefits of each. We assessed whether framing Aibo as a puppy (i.e., in need of development) versus simply a robot would result in more positive responses and in...

Much work has been done to engineer robots’ mechanical capabilities to best suit the general demands of their users and tasks. However, minimal research has addressed the impact of individual differences on perceptions of robot trustworthiness. These conclusions can provide guidance to optimize adaptive robotic systems in education, healthcare, and...

Human costly punishment plays a vital role in maintaining social norms. Recently, a brain network model is conceptually proposed indicating that the implement of costly punishment depends on a subset of nodes in three high-level networks. This model, however, has not yet been empirically examined from an integrated perspective of large-scale brain...

Background Psychopathic traits have been suggested to increase the risk of violations of socio-moral norms. Previous studies revealed that abnormal neural signatures are associated with elevated psychopathic traits; however, whether the intrinsic network architecture can predict psychopathic traits at the individual level remains unclear. Methods...

Trust is essential for establishing and maintaining cooperative behaviors between individuals and institutions in a wide variety of social, economic, and political contexts. This book explores trust through the lens of neurobiology, focusing on empirical, methodological, and theoretical aspects. Written by a distinguished group of researchers from...

Trust is essential for establishing and maintaining cooperative behaviors between individuals and institutions in a wide variety of social, economic, and political contexts. This book explores trust through the lens of neurobiology, focusing on empirical, methodological, and theoretical aspects. Written by a distinguished group of researchers from...

Trust is essential for establishing and maintaining cooperative behaviors between individuals and institutions in a wide variety of social, economic, and political contexts. This book explores trust through the lens of neurobiology, focusing on empirical, methodological, and theoretical aspects. Written by a distinguished group of researchers from...

Trust is essential for establishing and maintaining cooperative behaviors between individuals and institutions in a wide variety of social, economic, and political contexts. This book explores trust through the lens of neurobiology, focusing on empirical, methodological, and theoretical aspects. Written by a distinguished group of researchers from...

Trust is essential for establishing and maintaining cooperative behaviors between individuals and institutions in a wide variety of social, economic, and political contexts. This book explores trust through the lens of neurobiology, focusing on empirical, methodological, and theoretical aspects. Written by a distinguished group of researchers from...

Trust is essential for establishing and maintaining cooperative behaviors between individuals and institutions in a wide variety of social, economic, and political contexts. This book explores trust through the lens of neurobiology, focusing on empirical, methodological, and theoretical aspects. Written by a distinguished group of researchers from...

Trust is essential for establishing and maintaining cooperative behaviors between individuals and institutions in a wide variety of social, economic, and political contexts. This book explores trust through the lens of neurobiology, focusing on empirical, methodological, and theoretical aspects. Written by a distinguished group of researchers from...

Numerous neuroimaging studies have investigated the neural mechanisms of two mutually independent yet closely related cognitive processes aiding humans to navigate complex societies: social hierarchy-related learning (SH-RL) and social hierarchy-related interaction (SH-RI). To integrate these heterogeneous results into a more fine-grained and relia...

Numerous studies have sought proof of whether people are genuinely honest by testing whether cognitive control mechanisms are recruited during honest and dishonest behaviors. The underlying assumption is: Deliberate behaviors require cognitive control to inhibit intuitive responses. However, cognitive control during honest and dishonest behaviors c...

Trust is vital for establishing social relationships and is a crucial precursor for affiliative bonds. Investigations explored the neuropsychological bases of trust separately (e.g., measured by the trust game) and affiliative bonding (e.g., measured by parental care, pair-bonding, or friendship). However, direct empirical support for the shared ne...

Introduction: Theory of Mind (ToM) is a social-cognitive skill that allows the understanding of the intentions, beliefs, and desires of others. There is a distinction between affective and cognitive ToM, with evidence showing that these processes rely on partially distinct neural networks. The role of the cerebellum in social cognition has only bee...

Humans are motivated to give norm violators their just deserts through costly punishment even as unaffected third parties (i.e., third-party punishment, TPP). A great deal of individual variability exists in costly punishment; however, how this variability particularly in TPP is represented by the brain’s intrinsic network architecture remains elus...

Background Psychopathic traits have been suggested to increase the risk of violations of socio-moral norms. Previous studies revealed that abnormal neural signatures are associated with elevated psychopathic traits; however, whether the intrinsic network architecture can predict psychopathic traits at the individual level remains unclear. Methods...

Psychopathic traits have been demonstrated to be associated with different types of morality; however, the neuropsychological mechanism underlying the relationship between psychopathic traits and morality remains unclear. Our study examined the effective connectivity (EC) of psychopathic traits-related brain regions and its association to concern w...

Humans all over the world believe in spirits and deities, yet how the brain supports religious cognition remains unclear. Drawing on a unique sample of patients with penetrating traumatic brain injuries (pTBI) and matched healthy controls (HCs) we investigate dependencies of religious cognition on neural networks that represent (1) others agents’ i...

BACKGROUND : Small hippocampal volume is a prevalent neurostructural abnormality in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, whether the hippocampal atrophy is the cause of disease symptoms or a pre-existing risk factor and whether it is a reversible alteration or a permanent trait are unclear. The trait- or state-dependent alteration could a...

Autonomous machines are poised to become pervasive, but most treat machines differently: we are willing to violate social norms and less likely to display altruism toward machines. Here, we report an unexpected effect that those impacted by Covid-19 —as measured by a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder scale— show a sharp reduction in this difference. P...

Robotic agents will be life-long companions of humans in the foreseeable future. To achieve such successful relationships, people will likely attribute emotions and personality, assign social competencies, and develop a long-lasting attachment to robots. However, without a clear theoretical framework—building on biological, psychological, and techn...

Purpose The relationship between psychopathic traits and moral judgements has evoked passionate debates among researchers. Psychopathic traits have been characterized as risk factors for immoral behaviours in both non‐forensic and forensic populations; however, whether individuals with elevated psychopathic traits display atypical moral judgements...

Objective: We investigated whether the cerebellum plays a critical or supportive role in in executive and emotion processes in adults. Many investigators now espouse the hypothesis that participants with cerebellar lesions experience executive functions and emotions (EE) disorders. But we hypothesized that these disorders would be milder if the dam...

The ability to infer other persons' mental states, "Theory of Mind" (ToM), is a key function of social cognition and is needed when interpreting the intention of others. ToM is associated with a network of functionally related regions, with reportedly key prominent hubs located in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the temporoparietal j...

Trust forms the basis of virtually all interpersonal relationships. Although significant individual differences characterize trust, the driving neuropsychological signatures behind its heterogeneity remain obscure. Here, we applied a prediction framework in two independent samples of healthy participants to examine the relationship between trust pr...

Prosocial behaviors are hypothesized to require socio-cognitive and empathic abilities—engaging brain regions attributed to the mentalizing and empathy brain networks. Here, we tested this hypothesis with a coordinate-based meta-analysis of 600 neuroimaging studies on prosociality, mentalizing and empathy (∼12,000 individuals). We showed that brain...

Trust plays a critical role in nearly every aspect of social life. Parental investment theory and social role theory predict that women trust less than men due to a higher sensitivity to risk and betrayal, while men trust more than women to maximize resources and to signal their willingness to lose something. However, the underlying neuropsychologi...

This study investigated the neuropsychological underpinnings of reactive aggression toward innocent people in a student population with different levels of psychopathic traits. While recording event-related potentials, participants (divided into high/low psychopathic [HP/LP] traits groups) competed against two fictitious opponents in a modified Tay...

A strong personal relationship with God is theoretically and empirically associated with an enhanced sense of control. While a growing body of research is focused on understanding the neural mechanisms underlying religious belief, little is known about the brain basis of the link between a personal relationship with God and sense of control. Here,...

Social punishment (SOP)—third-party punishment (TPP) and second-party punishment (SPP)—sanctions norm-deviant behavior. The hierarchical punishment model (HPM) posits that TPP is an extension of SPP and both recruit common processes engaging large-scale domain-general brain networks. Here, we provided meta-analytic evidence to the HPM by combining...

Self-regulation of brain activation with real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback (rtfMRI-nf) is emerging as a promising treatment for psychiatric disorders. The association between the regulation and symptom reduction, however, has not been consistent, and the mechanisms underlying the symptom reduction remain poorly understoo...

Humans compute the anticipated reward value of stimuli in their environment in order to behave in an adaptive, goal-directed manner. This reward valuation ability is vital, and its disruption in a range of clinical populations has profound personal and social consequences. However, research has often failed to consider the reward-related functions...

The effect of prior beliefs on reasoning and decision-making is a robust, poorly understood phenomenon, exhibiting considerable individual variation. Neuroimaging studies widely show the involvement of the left prefrontal cortex (pFC) in reasoning involving beliefs. However, little patient data exist to speak to the necessity and role of the left p...

Objectives The objective of this study is to evaluate the relationship between suicidal ideation (SI), structural brain damage, and cognitive deficits in patients with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI). Methods Vietnam War veterans ( n = 142) with pTBI to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) underwent combination of neuropsychological and psychiatr...

Objective: To examine the association between childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and the level and rate of change in intelligence scores throughout adulthood following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Methods: In this longitudinal study we tested 186 patients with TBI and 54 healthy controls from the Vietnam Head Injury Study. Childhood SES was d...

Trust constitutes a fundamental basis of human society and plays a pivotal role in almost every aspect of human relationships. Although enormous interest exists in determining the neuropsychological underpinnings of a person's propensity to trust utilizing task‐based fMRI; however, little progress has been made in predicting its variations by task‐...

Loneliness is perceived as social isolation and exclusion. The neural substrate of loneliness has been investigated with functional neuroimaging; however, lesion-based studies and their associated outcomes are needed to infer causal involvement between brain regions and function. Here, we applied voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) analyses t...

Economic games are used to elicit a social, conflictual situation in which people have to make decisions weighing self-related and collective interests. Combining these games with task-based fMRI has been shown to be successful in investigating the neural underpinnings of cooperative behaviors. However, it remains elusive to which extent resting-st...

Trust pervades nearly every social aspect of our daily lives, and its disruption is a significant factor in mental illness. Research in the field of neuroeconomics has gained a deeper understanding of the neuropsychoeconomic (NPE) underpinnings of trust by combining complementary methodologies from neuroscience, psychology, and economics. However,...

The objective of the present study was to investigate structural changes in the narrative discourse of individuals with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI) following immediate and delayed story retellings. Additionally, the potential influence of immediate memory, working memory, and executive functions on narrative discourse performance were...