Modulating activity in the orbitofrontal cortex changes trustees' cooperation: A transcranial direct current stimulation study

• The right OFC is the guilt-specific brain region.
• Anodal tDCS over the right OFC increased the degree of cooperation.
• The right OFC is involved in pure cooperative motives.

Trust is one of the most important factors in human society, as it pervades almost all domains of the society. The trusting behavior of trustors is dependent on the belief about the cooperative (reciprocal) level of trustees. Thence what are the motives underlying the cooperative behavior? An important explanation is that guilt aversion can motivate cooperative behavior. The right orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is the guilt-specific region, while there is little understanding on the causal effect of this network. We explored the causal effect of the OFC on cooperative behavior using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Sixty participants played the trust game as trustees, and they received either anodal tDCS over the right OFC and simultaneously cathodal electrode over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), or sham stimulation. Experimental results showed that participants as trustees transferred back more money in the tDCS treatment than sham stimulation. This suggests that the activity of the right OFC has causal effects on cooperative behavior.