An older paper, The Neural Basis of Altruistic Punishment talks about how we derive satisfaction from punishing wrongdoers and that we show activation for anticipating that satisfaction. 

The images above represent 1) activation in the caudate nucleus in conditions in which subjects “indicated a strong desire to punish and could effectively do so”… and 2) activation of the ventromedial prefrontalcortex and the medial orbitofrontal cortex “in the condition where subjects have a strong desire to sanction but where sanctioning is costly for the punisher.”

A question for the population I’m using is: how much of a difference is there, in these reward related brain circuits, given the different motivation for punishment?