Corruption often apunisw2 involves bribery, when a briber suborns a power-holder to gain advantages usually at a cost of moral transgression.Despite its wide presence in human societies, the neurocomputational basis of bribery remains elusive.Here, using model-based fMRI, we investigated the neural substrates of how a power-holder decides to accept or reject a bribe.Power-holders considered two types of moral cost brought by taking bribes: the cost of conniving with a fraudulent briber, encoded in the anterior insula, and the harm brought to a icon track bar f250 third party, represented in the right temporoparietal junction.These moral costs were integrated into a value signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was selectively engaged to guide anti-corrupt behaviors when a third party would be harmed.Multivariate and connectivity analyses further explored how these neural processes depend on individual differences.These findings advance our understanding of the neurocomputational mechanisms underlying corrupt behaviors.