A neuroimaging-based meta-analysis of prosocial behavior in childhood and adolescence

Despite increasing interest in the neural underpinnings of prosociality during childhood and adolescence, there is little convergence across studies of brain activations associated with prosocial behavior in developmental populations. Here, we build on 11 neuroimaging studies on prosocial behavior in developmental samples of average age between 8 and 17 years and conducted an Activation Likelihood Estimation meta-analysis. We found clusters of significant spatial convergence across studies in the insulae, inferior frontal gyrus, middle cingulum, and the precentral gyrus. The cluster in the cingulate cortex, which existing literature associates with cognitive control, shows overlap with previous meta-analytical data on prosocial behavior in adults. This region may constitute a core neurocognitive mechanism underlying prosociality from childhood to adulthood.