1,720,995 research outputs found
Neural processing of social interaction: Coordinate-based meta-analytic evidence from human neuroimaging studies
No full textWhile the action observation and mentalizing networks are considered to play complementary roles in understanding others' goals and intentions, they might be concurrently engaged when processing social interactions. We assessed this hypothesis via three activation-likelihood-estimation meta-analyses of neuroimaging studies on the neural processing of: (a) social interactions, (b) individual actions by the action observation network, and (c) mental states by the mentalizing network. Conjunction analyses and direct comparisons unveiled overlapping and specific regions among the resulting maps. We report quantitative meta-analytic evidence for a “social interaction network” including key nodes of the action observation and mentalizing networks. An action–social interaction-mentalizing gradient of activity along the posterior temporal cortex highlighted a hierarchical processing of interactions, from visuomotor analyses decoding individual and shared intentions to in-depth inferences on actors' intentional states. The medial prefrontal cortex, possibly in conjunction with the amygdala, might provide additional information concerning the affective valence of the interaction. This evidence suggests that the functional architecture underlying the neural processing of interactions involves the joint involvement of the action observation and mentalizing networks. These data might inform the design of rehabilitative treatments for social cognition disorders in pathological conditions, and the assessment of their outcome in randomized controlled trials
Dalla neuroeconomia alla neuroetica: verso una neuroscienza delle decisioni individuali e socio-morali = From Neuroeconomy to Neuroethics: Towards a Neuroscience of Individual and Socio-Moral Decisions
No full textNeuroeconomia e neuroetica sono settori delle neuroscienze cognitive che studiano i correlati neurali di aspetti distinti, sebbene strettamente interconnessi, del processo decisionale. Mentre la neuroeconomia studia i meccanismi cerebrali che guidano verso la massimizzazione dell’utilità economica personale, la neuroetica integra tali conoscenze con quelle fornite dalle neuroscienze sociali per affrontare domande tipiche dell'etica e della filosofia morale. Gli studi oggi disponibili in questo ambito vengono qui discussi al fine di mettere a confronto l’ipotesi secondo cui le scelte economiche individuali e socio-morali sono supportate da un unico circuito cerebrale con differenti input specifici per dominio (Extended Common Currency Schema) rispetto a quella che prevede basi cerebrali specifiche per la scelta in ambito socio-morale (Social-Valutation-Specific Schema). In linea con il primo dei due modelli, i dati presenti in letteratura sembrano confermare l’esistenza di un singolo sistema cerebrale associato ai diversi tipi di scelta, indipendentemente dal contesto decisionale individuale vs. socio-morale.Neuroeconomics and neuroethics are subfields of cognitive neuroscience that address the neural correlates of distinct, although strongly intertwined, facets of decision-making. While neuroeconomics investigates the neural mechanisms underlying the maximization of personal economic utility, neuroethics integrates such knowledge with that provided by social neurosciences, in order to address typical questions in ethics and moral philosophy. We review the available research to contrast the hypothesis that both individual economic and socio-moral choices rely on a common brain network receiving domain-specific inputs (Extended Common Currency Schema) and the claim that a specific brain network underpins choices in a socio-moral context (Social-Valutation-Specific Schema). In line with the former model, currently available evidence supports the existence of a single brain network associated with both choice types, regardless of the economic individual vs. socio-moral decisional context
Social Cognition through the Lens of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience
Full text linkSocial cognition refers to a set of processes, ranging from perception to decision-making, underlying the ability to decode others' intentions and behaviors to plan actions fitting with social and moral, besides individual and economic considerations. Its centrality in everyday life reflects the neural complexity of social processing and the ubiquity of social cognitive deficits in different pathological conditions. Social cognitive processes can be clustered in three domains associated with (a) perceptual processing of social information such as faces and emotional expressions (social perception), (b) grasping others' cognitive or affective states (social understanding), and (c) planning behaviors taking into consideration others', in addition to one's own, goals (social decision-making). We review these domains from the lens of cognitive neuroscience, i.e., in terms of the brain areas mediating the role of such processes in the ability to make sense of others' behavior and plan socially appropriate actions. The increasing evidence on the "social brain" obtained from healthy young individuals nowadays constitutes the baseline for detecting changes in social cognitive skills associated with physiological aging or pathological conditions. In the latter case, impairments in one or more of the abovementioned domains represent a prominent concern, or even a core facet, of neurological (e.g., acquired brain injury or neurodegenerative diseases), psychiatric (e.g., schizophrenia), and developmental (e.g., autism) disorders. To pave the way for the other papers of this issue, addressing the social cognitive deficits associated with severe acquired brain injury, we will briefly discuss the available evidence on the status of social cognition in normal aging and its breakdown in neurodegenerative disorders. Although the assessment and treatment of such impairments is a relatively novel sector in neurorehabilitation, the evidence summarized here strongly suggests that the development of remediation procedures for social cognitive skills will represent a future field of translational research in clinical neuroscience
Neural representation of social concepts: a coordinate-based meta-analysis of fMRI studies
No full textThe possible uniqueness of social stimuli constitutes a key topic for cognitive neuroscience. Growing evidence highlights graded contributions to their semantic processing by the anterior temporal lobe (ATL), where the omni-category response displayed by its ventrolateral sector might reflect the integration of information relayed from other regions. Among these, the superior polar ATL was specifically associated with representing social concepts. However, most previous studies neglected the close relationship between social and emotional semantic features, which might confound interpreting the degree of overlap vs. specificity of social and emotional conceptual processing. We addressed this issue via two activation-likelihood-estimation meta-analyses of neuroimaging studies reporting brain structures associated with processing social or emotional concepts. Alongside a common involvement of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, we found social and emotional concepts to be specifically associated with lateral temporal areas (including the superior polar ATL) and the amygdala, respectively. These results support the specialization of distinct sectors of the fronto-temporo-limbic circuitry for processing social vs. emotional concepts, and the integration of their output in medial prefrontal regions underlying the regulation of social behavior. These results pave the way for further studies addressing the neural bases of conceptual knowledge, its impairment after fronto-temporal brain damage, and the effect of rehabilitative interventions targeting its main functional modules
Increased pSTS activity and decreased pSTS-mPFC connectivity when processing negative social interactions
No full textWe have previously shown that activity and connectivity within and between the action observation and mentalizing brain systems reflect the degree of positive dimensions expressed by social interactions such as cooperativity and affectivity, respectively. Here we aim to extend this evidence by investigating the neural bases of processing negative dimensions of observed interactions, such as competition and affective conflict, possibly representing a benchmark for different pathological conditions. In this fMRI study 34 healthy participants were shown pictures depicting interactions characterized by two crossed dimensions, i.e. positively- vs. negatively- connotated social intentions mainly expressed in terms of motor acts vs. mental states, i.e. cooperative, competitive, affective and conflicting interactions. We confirmed the involvement of the action observation and mentalizing networks in processing intentions mainly expressed through motor acts (cooperative/competitive) vs. mental states (affective/conflicting), respectively. Results highlighted the selective role of the left pSTS/TPJ in decoding social interactions, even when compared with parallel actions by non-interacting individuals. Its right-hemispheric homologue displayed stronger responses to negative than positive social intentions, regardless of their motor/mental status, and decreased connectivity with the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) when processing negative interactions. The resulting mPFC downregulation by negative social scenes might reflect an adaptive response to socio-affective threats, via decreased mentalizing when facing negative social stimuli. This evidence on the brain mechanisms underlying the decoding of real complex interactions represents a baseline for assessing both the neural correlates of impaired social cognition, and the effects of rehabilitative treatments, in neuro-psychiatric diseases or borderline conditions such as loneliness
Social cognition in the blind brain: A coordinate-based meta-analysis
Full text linkSocial cognition skills are typically acquired on the basis of visual information (e.g., the observation of gaze, facial expressions, gestures). In light of this, a critical issue is whether and how the lack of visual experience affects neurocognitive mechanisms underlying social skills. This issue has been largely neglected in the literature on blindness, despite difficulties in social interactions may be particular salient in the life of blind individuals (especially children). Here we provide a meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies reporting brain activations associated to the representation of self and others' in early blind individuals and in sighted controls. Our results indicate that early blindness does not critically impact on the development of the “social brain,” with social tasks performed on the basis of auditory or tactile information driving consistent activations in nodes of the action observation network, typically active during actual observation of others in sighted individuals. Interestingly though, activations along this network appeared more left-lateralized in the blind than in sighted participants. These results may have important implications for the development of specific training programs to improve social skills in blind children and young adults
Fronto-temporal brain activity and connectivity track implicit attention to positive and negative social words in a novel socio-emotional Stroop task
Full text linkPrevious inconsistencies on the effects of implicitly processing positively - vs. negatively - connotated emotional words might reflect the influence of uncontrolled psycholinguistic dimensions, and/or social facets inherent in putative “emotional” stimuli. Based on the relevance of social features in semantic cognition, we developed a socio-emotional Stroop task to assess the influence of social vs. individual (non-social) emotional content, besides negative vs. positive valence, on implicit word processing. The effect of these variables was evaluated in terms of performance and RTs, alongside associated brain activity/connectivity. We matched conditions for several psycholinguistic variables, and assessed a modulation of brain activity/connectivity by trial-wise RT, to characterize the maximum of condition- and subject-specific variability. RTs were tracked by insular and anterior cingulate activations likely reflecting implicit attention to stimuli, interfering with task-performance based on condition-specific processing of their subjective salience. Slower performance for negative than neutral/positive words was tracked by left-hemispheric structures processing negative stimuli and emotions, such as fronto-insular cortex, while the lack of specific activations for positively-connotated words supported their marginal facilitatory effect. The speeding/slowing effects of processing positive/negative individual emotional stimuli were enhanced by social words, reflecting in specific activations of the right anterior temporal and orbitofrontal cortex, respectively. RTs to social positive and negative words modulated connectivity from these regions to fronto-striatal and sensorimotor structures, respectively, likely promoting approach vs. avoidance dispositions shaping their facilitatory vs. inhibitory effect. These results might help assessing the neural correlates of impaired social cognition and emotional regulation, and the effects of rehabilitative interventions
Relational vs. representational social cognitive processing: a coordinate-based meta-analysis of neuroimaging data
Full text link: The neuro-cognitive bases of social cognition have been framed in terms of representing others' actions through the mirror system, and their mental states via the mentalizing network. Alongside representing another person's action or mental states, however, social cognitive processing is also shaped by their (mis)match with one's own corresponding states. Here we addressed the distinction between representing others' states through the action observation or mentalizing networks (i.e., representational processing), and detecting the extent to which such states align with one's own ones (i.e., relational processing, mediated by social conflict). We took a meta-analytic approach to unveil the neural bases of both relational and representational processing by focusing on previously reported brain activations from fMRI studies using false belief and action observation tasks. Our findings suggest that relational processing for belief and action states involves, respectively, the left and right temporoparietal junction, likely contributing to self-other differentiation. Moreover, distinct sectors of the posterior fronto-medial cortex support social conflict processing for belief and action, possibly through the inhibition of conflictual representations. These data might pave the way for further studies addressing social conflict as an important component of normal and pathological processing, and inform the design of rehabilitative treatments for social deficits
Preliminary ERP evidence of the impact of loneliness on Stroop interference for socio-emotional stimuli
Full text linkGrowing evidence highlights the adverse clinical effects and societal implications of loneliness, i.e., the negative feeling associated with a perceived discrepancy between desired and existing social connections. To further understand the implicit attentional and cognitive control processes associated with loneliness, we used electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the relationship between loneliness levels and brain activity underlying attentional capture in a socio-emotional Stroop task. In keeping with previous reports of three-stage processing of socio-emotional words, positive–negative valence and social-individual content of word stimuli were reflected in the amplitude of ERP components associated with high-order perceptual processing and preliminary emotional decoding (P200), emotional and semantic processing (P300), and interference suppression (N450). In the later stage, the differential N450 amplitude associated with processing socially negative compared with control-neutral stimuli was negatively correlated with self-perceived loneliness levels. This finding suggests that social negative and neutral stimuli are processed more dissimilarly at higher levels of self-perceived loneliness, possibly due to increased hypervigilance toward negative social cues, like those associated with rejection or exclusion. By elucidating the neural mechanisms underlying the effects of loneliness on socio-cognitive processing, these findings provide novel insights that can guide future research and inform the development of innovative therapeutic interventions that target the consequences of perceived social disconnectio
Facemasks reduce face trustworthiness perceived by deaf individuals
Full text linkDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, most people wore facemasks to protect themselves and others. Whilst this was recommendable, unfortunately facemasks represented a critical problem for deaf people by preventing lipreading. Moreover, the mouth region represents a crucial source of information for inferring emotional states as well as for visually-based social first impressions. An interesting question is whether facemasks impact on social inferences, such as trustworthiness judgments, in a similar vein in deaf and hearing individuals. Our results showed that overall deaf individuals performed similarly to hearing controls in the evaluation of different levels of trustworthiness of computer-generated faces manipulated for trustworthiness. However, deaf individuals judged faces with facemasks to be overall less trustworthy than hearing participants. We interpret this result as suggesting that, for deaf individuals, occluding the mouth area prevents the processing of perceptual information from mouthing and mouth gestures, thus blocking a holistic representation of the face, which in turn hinders communication and limits social exchanges for deaf individuals
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