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Is your medication affecting your MORALS? Antidepressants make people behave selflessly, while Parkinson’s drugs make you selfish, study claims

Citalopram-takers were willing to pay almost twice as much to prevent harm to others than those given placebo drugs in an experiment
In contrast, Parkinson's drug levodopa made people more selfish
Researchers said study provides insight into the neural basis of clinical disorders characterised by a lack of concern for others

Published: 06:59 EST, 9 July 2015 | Updated: 07:02 EST, 9 July 2015

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Commonly prescribed medications can influence our moral judgment, according to a study.

Antidepressants made people behave more selflessly, while drugs used to treat Parkinson’s disease made them more selfish, the researchers found.

For the study, by University College London and Oxford University, a group of healthy volunteers were randomly given either citalopram - an antidepressant which affects levels of the brain chemical serotonin - or a placebo.

Hidden effects: The researchers said their study provides insight into the neural basis of clinical disorders characterised by a lack of concern for others, such as psychopathy (stock image pictured)

Another group of healthy participants were given the Parkinson’s drug levodopa – which boosts levels of the brain chemical dopamine - or a placebo.

The researchers found that citalopram-takers were willing to pay almost twice as much to prevent harm to others than those given placebo drugs in a moral decision-making experiment.

In contrast, the levodopa made people more selfish, eliminating an altruistic tendency to prefer harming themselves over others.

The researchers said their study provides insight into the neural basis of clinical disorders characterised by a lack of concern for others, such as psychopathy.

‘Our findings have implications for potential lines of treatment for antisocial behaviour, as they help us to understand how serotonin and dopamine affect people’s willingness to harm others for personal gain,’ said study author Dr Molly Crockett.

‘We have shown that commonly-prescribed psychiatric drugs influence moral decisions in healthy people, raising important ethical questions about the use of such drugs.

‘It is important to stress, however, that these drugs may have different effects in psychiatric patients compared to healthy people.

‘More research is needed to determine whether these drugs affect moral decisions in people who take them for medical reasons.’

In the study Parkinson's drug Levodopa (molecular model pictured) - which boosts levels of the brain chemical dopamine - made people more selfish, eliminating a tendency to prefer harming themselves over others

The study, which is published in the journal Current Biology, compared how much pain people were willing to anonymously inflict on themselves or strangers in exchange for money.

A total of 175 healthy adults took part, with 89 taking citalopram or a placebo and 86 taking levodopa or a placebo. None of the participants knew which group they had been allocated to.

Participants were randomly assigned to the roles of decider and receiver and anonymously paired up so that each decider did not know who the receiver was and vice-versa.

CHILDHOOD STRESS COULD MAKE WOMEN FAT

Young girls who experience stressful events, such as a death or illness in the family, are more likely to gain weight as an adult.

This is according to a new US study which found stress during childhood may be even a bigger culprit to weight gain than stress in adulthood.

But the impact was solely on women. According to the research, neither childhood nor adult stress has any impact on weight gain for men.

In the study, childhood stress was measured on a range of family-related stressors that occurred at age 16 or younger.

These included economic hardship, divorce, at least one parent with mental health problems and never knowing one's father.

Women who experienced higher levels of childhood stress gained weight more rapidly than women who experienced less childhood stress.

'These findings add to our understanding of how childhood stress is a more important driver of long-term weight gain than adult stress, and how such processes differ for men and women,' says Hui Liu, associate professor of sociology at Michigan State University.

All participants were given mildly painful electric shocks matched to their pain threshold so that the intensity was not intolerable. Deciders were told that shocks to receivers would be at the receiver’s own pain threshold.

Deciders went into a room alone with a computer terminal, and each took part in 170 trials.

For each trial, they had to choose between different amounts of money for different numbers of shocks, up to a maximum 20 shocks and £20 per trial. For example, they might be offered a choice of seven shocks for £10, or 10 shocks for £15.

Half of the decisions related to shocks for themselves and half to shocks for the receiver, but in all cases the deciders would get the money.

At the end of the session, one of the chosen trial results would be implemented so that the decider or receiver received the shocks and the decider received the profits. As such, their decisions had real consequences.

Deciders knew that their decisions would be kept secret so that fear of judgment or retaliation would not skew the results.

On average, people given a placebo were prepared to pay approximately 35p per shock to prevent harm to themselves and 44p per shock to prevent harm to others.

Those on citalopram were far more harm-averse, willing to pay an average 60p per shock to prevent harm to themselves and 73p per shock to prevent harm to others.

Over the course of the experiment, this meant that people taking the antidepressant delivered an average 30 fewer shocks to themselves and 35 fewer shocks to others than those taking a placebo.

People given the Parkinson’s drug levodopa, however, were not willing to pay any more to prevent shocks to others than to prevent shocks to themselves.

On average, they were prepared to pay approximately 35p per shock to prevent harm to themselves or others. This meant that they delivered on average 10 more shocks to others during the experiment than the placebo group.

They were also less hesitant to deliver shocks to others, making the decision faster than those on the placebo.