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Past historical events and experimental research have shown that complying with orders from an authority has a strong impact on harming/destructive behavior, but no one has ever looked into the potential intervention and its neural underpinning to reveal the toll of coercion. We used a paradigm of virtual obedience to authority, in which an experimenter ordered a volunteer to press a handheld button to initiate actions that carried different consequences, including harming or helping others. In this study, we scanned the brain with functional neuroimaging and applied transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to modulate the activation of the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) in healthy volunteers in a single-blinded, sham-controlled, crossover trial with anodal, cathodal, and sham stimulation. We observed that cathodal stimulation, compared to anodal and sham stimulation, significantly reduced reaction times (RTs) to initiating harming actions. The effect of tDCS on the rTPJ, orbitofrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex had opposite directions depending on coercive harming or helping actions. Cathodal tDCS-induced changes in the strength of the functional connectivity between the rTPJ and amygdala predicted the effect of cathodal tDCS on harming RTs. The findings provide evidence supporting the rTPJ having a role in coercion-induced changes in the sense of agency. Neuromodulation with tDCS might help in unveiling the power of authority and assisting in the emergence of prosocial behavior, thus shedding light on coping strategies against coercion beyond merely examining its effects.

Over the long run, STEM fields had been perceived as dominant by males, despite that numerous studies have shown that female students do not underperform their male classmates in mathematics and science. In this review, we discuss whether and how sex/gender shows specificity in arithmetic processing using a cognitive neuroscience approach not only to capture contemporary differences in brain and behavior but also to provide exclusive brain bases knowledge that is unseen in behavioral outcomes alone. We begin by summarizing studies that had examined sex differences/similarities in behavioral performance of mathematical learning, with a specific focus on large‐scale meta‐analytical data. We then discuss how the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach can contribute to understanding neural mechanisms underlying sex‐specific effects of mathematical learning by reviewing structural and functional data. Finally, we close this review by proposing potential research issues for further exploration of the sex effect using neuroimaging technology. Through the lens of advancement in the neuroimaging technique, we seek to provide insights into uncovering sex‐specific neural mechanisms of learning to inform and achieve genuine gender equality in education.

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Individuals under coercive control frequently suffer from anxiety, with recent research asserting this situation as a catalyst for certain types of violence directed towards those suffering under the most serious and insidious forms of coercive power –such as domestic violence victims. Studies researching this matter have skewed towards dissembling manipulation, or participants' obedience levels, neglecting the fact that agents under coercive power are also victims of coercive violence. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we investigate the effects of the anxiolytic GABAA (gamma-Aminobutyric acid) modulator, lorazepam, on behavioral and neural levels in response to coercive power. We used a virtual obedience to authority paradigm inspired in Milgram's renowned experiments of the same nature. An experimenter ordered a volunteer to press a handheld button to initiate actions that carry different moral consequences, including harming or helping others. Our results showed that lorazepam administration, relative to placebo, slowed down reaction times when initiating harming behaviors, but accelerated reaction times for helping actions, despite comparable subjective ratings regarding perceived coercion. Coercive harming significantly increased activation in the amygdala, hippocampus, orbitofrontal cortex, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). After lorazepam administration, activity in the amygdala and hippocampus decreased, but activity in the dlPFC and right temporoparietal junction increased. The lower activity in the hippocampus predicted higher subjective ratings for perceived coercion. Furthermore, lorazepam administration significantly decreased the functional connectivity of the hippocampus with the dlPFC during coercive harming. Our results shed light on the coping strategies against coercion beyond merely examining its effects.