Self-face recognition activates a frontoparietal “mirror” network in the right hemisphere: an event-related fMRI study

Effects of observing own/others hand movement in different perspectives on mu rhythm suppression: an EEG study

BACKGROUND

Previous studies have reported that the sense of "self" is associated with specific brain regions and neural network activities. In addition, the mirror system, which functions when executing or observing an action, might contribute to differentiating the self from others and form the basis of the sense of self as a fundamental physical representation. This study investigated whether differences in mu suppression, an indicator of mirror system activity, reflect cognitions related to self-other discrimination.

METHODS

The participants were 30 of healthy college students. The participants observed short video clips of hand movements performed by themselves or actors from two perspectives (i.e., first-person and third-person). The electroencephalogram (EEG) mu rhythm (8-13 Hz) was measured during video observation as an index of mirror neuron system activity. EEG activity related to self-detection was analyzed using participants' hand movements as self-relevant stimuli.

RESULTS

The results showed that mu suppression in the 8-13-Hz range exhibited perspective-dependent responses to self/other stimuli. There was a significant self-oriented mu suppression response in the first-person perspective. However, the study found no significant response orientation in the third-person perspective. The results suggest that mirror system activity may involve self-other discrimination differently depending on the perspective.

CONCLUSIONS

In summary, this study examined the mirror system's activity for self and others using the EEG's mu suppression. As a result, it was suggested that differences in self and others or perspectives may influence mu suppression.

Human reasoning on social interactions in ecological contexts: insights from the theory of mind brain circuits

Introduction

The relationship between neural social cognition patterns and performance on social cognition tasks in daily life is a topic of debate, with key consideration given to the extent to which theory of mind (ToM) brain circuits share properties reflecting everyday social functioning. To test the efficacy of ecological stimuli in eliciting brain activation within the ToM brain circuits, we adapted the Edinburgh Social Cognition test social scenarios, consisting of dynamic ecological contextually embedded social stimuli, to a fMRI paradigm.

Methods

Forty-two adults (21 men, mean age ± SD = 34.19 years ±12.57) were enrolled and underwent an fMRI assessment which consisted of a ToM task using the Edinburgh Social Cognition test scenarios. We used the same stimuli to prompt implicit (movie viewing) and explicit (silent and two-choice answers) reasoning on cognitive and affective mental states. The fMRI analysis was based on the classical random effect analysis. Group inferences were complemented with supplemental analyses using overlap maps to assess inter-subject variability.

Results

We found that explicit mentalizing reasoning yielded wide neural activations when two-choice answers were used. We also observed that the nature of ToM reasoning, that is, affective or cognitive, played a significant role in activating different neural circuits.

Discussion

The ESCoT stimuli were particularly effective in evoking ToM core neural underpinnings and elicited executive frontal loops. Future work may employ the task in a clinical setting to investigate ToM network reorganization and plasticity.

An identity-irrelevant discrimination task reveals familiarity-advantage in face perception and no self-advantage in voice perception

Whether or not self-face and self-voice are processed more accurately than others' remains inconclusive. Most previous studies asked participants to judge the presented stimulus as their own or as others', and compared response accuracy to discuss self-advantage. However, it is possible that participants responded correctly in the "other" trials not by identifying "other" but rather by rejecting "self." The present study employed an identity-irrelevant discrimination task, in which participants detected the odd stimulus among the three sequentially presented stimuli. We measured the discrimination thresholds for the self, friend, and stranger conditions. In Experiment 1 (face), the discrimination thresholds for self and friends' faces were lower than those for strangers' faces. This suggests that self-face may not be perceived as special or unique, and facial representation may become more accurate due to increased familiarity through repetitive exposure. Whereas, in Experiment 2 (voice), the discrimination thresholds did not differ between the three conditions, suggesting that the sensitivity to changes is the same regardless of identity. Overall, we found no evidence for self-advantage in identification accuracy, as we observed a familiarity-advantage rather than self-advantage in face processing and a null difference in voice processing.

'Magic cosmetic fillers': Appearance-enhancement effects on self-face recognition

People naturally exhibit a self-serving bias which can be observed in their tendency to judge their own physical attractiveness more favourably than that of others. Despite this positive self-perception, minimally invasive cosmetic injectable procedures for facial rejuvenation and enhancement are becoming increasingly common. It remains unclear, however, whether recognizing an altered version of one's own face, enhanced cosmetically, correlates with a positive view of cosmetic surgery and excessive preoccupations about physical characteristics perceived as defects (body dysmorphic concerns). In this study, 30 healthy female participants, aged 18-24 years (Mage = 21.1 years, SD = 1.6), engaged in a face recognition task during which their faces were digitally morphed with that of gender-matched unfamiliar women who had undergone cosmetic enhancements, specifically lip and cheek fillers. The duration of exposure to these modified faces varied with short (500 msec) and long (2000 msec) viewing periods. Participants were asked to identify whether the digital morphs represented themselves or the other woman. Self-reports regarding acceptance of cosmetic surgery and dysmorphic concerns were collected. Participants PSE indicated a tendency towards self-bias under short presentation times, shifting towards the other as presentation times lengthened. Interestingly, this effect was associated with greater acceptance of cosmetic surgery and higher body dysmorphic concerns. This study underscores the importance of understanding how perceptions of others' physical appearances can influence self-recognition and attitudes towards cosmetic surgery, which may have both positive and potentially harmful implications.

Investigating the neural effects of typicality and predictability for face and object stimuli

The brain calibrates itself based on the past stimulus diet, which makes frequently observed stimuli appear as typical (as opposed to uncommon stimuli, which appear as distinctive). Based on predictive processing theory, the brain should be more "prepared" for typical exemplars, because these contain information that has been encountered frequently, allowing it to economically represent items of that category. Thus, one could ask whether predictability and typicality of visual stimuli interact, or rather act in an additive manner. We adapted the design by Egner and colleagues (2010), who used cues to induce expectations about stimulus category (face vs. chair) occurrence during an orthogonal inversion detection task. We measured BOLD responses with fMRI in 35 participants. First, distinctive stimuli always elicited stronger responses than typical ones in all ROIs, and our whole-brain directional contrasts for the effects of typicality and distinctiveness converge with previous findings. Second and importantly, we could not replicate the interaction between category and predictability reported by Egner et al. (2010), which casts doubt on whether cueing designs are ideal to elicit reliable predictability effects. Third, likely as a consequence of the lack of predictability effects, we found no interaction between predictability and typicality in any of the four tested regions (bilateral fusiform face areas, lateral occipital complexes) when considering both categories, nor in the whole brain. We discuss the issue of replicability in neuroscience and sketch an agenda for how future studies might address the same question.

The role of self-representation in emotional contagion

Although prior research has implied that emotional contagion occurs automatically and unconsciously, convincing evidence suggests that it is significantly influenced by individuals' perceptions of their relationships with others or with collectives within specific social contexts. This implies a role for self-representation in the process. The present study aimed to offer a novel explanation of the interplay between social contexts and emotional contagion, focusing on the contextualized nature of self-representation and exploring the social factors that shape emotional contagion. It further posits a causal loop among social contexts, self-representation, and emotional contagion. Drawing from the lens of self-representation, this study concludes with a discussion on potential research directions in this field, commencing with an exploration of the antecedents and consequences of emotional contagion and self-representation.

Who am I with my Lewy bodies? The insula as a core region of the self-concept networks

BACKGROUND

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is characterized by insular atrophy, which occurs at the early stage of the disease. Damage to the insula has been associated with disorders reflecting impairments of the most fundamental components of the self, such as anosognosia, which is a frequently reported symptom in patients with Lewy bodies (LB). The purpose of this study was to investigate modifications of the self-concept (SC), another component of the self, and to identify neuroanatomical correlates, in prodromal to mild DLB.

METHODS

Twenty patients with prodromal to mild DLB were selected to participate in this exploratory study along with 20 healthy control subjects matched in terms of age, gender, and level of education. The Twenty Statements Test (TST) was used to assess the SC. Behavioral performances were compared between LB patients and control subjects. Three-dimensional magnetic resonance images (MRI) were acquired for all participants and correlational analyses were performed using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) in whole brain and using a mask for the insula.

RESULTS

The behavioral results on the TST showed significantly impaired performances in LB patients in comparison with control subjects (p < .0001). Correlational analyses using VBM revealed positive correlations between the TST and grey matter volume within insular cortex, right supplementary motor area, bilateral inferior temporal gyri, right inferior frontal gyrus, and left lingual gyrus, using a threshold of p = .001 uncorrected, including total intracranial volume (TIV), age, and MMSE as nuisance covariates. Additionally, correlational analysis using a mask for the insula revealed positive correlation with grey matter volume within bilateral insular cortex, using a threshold of p = .005.

CONCLUSIONS

The behavioral results confirm the existence of SC impairments in LB patients from the prodromal stage of the disease, compared to matched healthy controls. As we expected, VBM analyses revealed involvement of the insula, among that of other brain regions, already known to be involved in other self-components. While this study is exploratory, our findings provide important insights regarding the involvement of the insula within the self, confirming the insula as a core region of the self-networks, including for high-order self-representations such as the SC.

Observing an expert's action swapped with an observer's face increases corticospinal excitability during combined action observation and motor imagery

This study aimed to examine whether observing an expert's action swapped with an observer's face increases corticospinal excitability during combined action observation and motor imagery (AOMI). Twelve young males performed motor imagery of motor tasks with different difficulties while observing the actions of an expert performer and an expert performer with a swapped face. Motor tasks included bilateral wrist dorsiflexion (EASY) and unilateral two-ball rotating motions (DIFF). During the AOMI of EASY and DIFF, single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation was delivered to the left primary motor cortex, and motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) were obtained from the extensor carpi ulnaris and first dorsal interosseous muscles of the right upper limb, respectively. Visual analogue scale (VAS) assessed the subjective similarity of the expert performer with the swapped face in the EASY and DIFF to the participants themselves. The MEP amplitude in DIFF was larger in the observation of the expert performer with the swapped face than that of the expert performer (P = 0.012); however, the corresponding difference was not observed in EASY (P = 1.000). The relative change in the MEP amplitude from observing the action of the expert performer to that of the expert performer with the swapped face was positively correlated with VAS only in DIFF (r = 0.644, P = 0.024). These results indicate that observing the action of an expert performer with the observer's face enhances corticospinal excitability during AOMI, depending on the task difficulty and subjective similarity between the expert performer being observed and the observer.

Regularity and variability of functional brain connectivity characteristics between gyri and sulci under naturalistic stimulus

The human cerebral cortex is folded into two fundamentally anatomical units: gyri and sulci. Previous studies have demonstrated the genetical, structural, and functional differences between gyri and sulci, providing a unique perspective for revealing the relationship among brain function, cognition, and behavior. While previous studies mainly focus on the functional differences between gyri and sulci under resting or task-evoked state, such characteristics under naturalistic stimulus (NS) which reflects real-world dynamic environments are largely unknown. To address this question, this study systematically investigates spatio-temporal functional connectivity (FC) characteristics between gyri and sulci under NS using a spatio-temporal graph convolutional network model. Based on the public Human Connectome Project dataset of 174 subjects with four different runs of both movie-watching NS and resting state 7T functional MRI data, we successfully identify unique FC features under NS, which are mainly involved in visual, auditory, emotional and cognitive control, and achieve high discriminative accuracy 93.06 % to resting state. Moreover, gyral regions as well as gyro-gyral connections consistently participate more as functional information exchange hubs than sulcal ones among these networks. This study provides novel insights into the functional brain mechanism under NS and lays a solid foundation for accurately mapping the brain anatomy-function relationship.

Narrative simulation of social experiences in naturalistic context - A neurocinematic approach

Narratives may be regarded as simulations of everyday social situations. They are key to studying the human mind in socio-culturally determined contexts as they allow anchoring to the common ground of embodied and environmentally-engaged cognition. Here we review recent findings from naturalistic neuroscience on neural functions in conditions that mimic lifelike situations. We will focus particularly on neurocinematics, a research field that applies mediated narratives as stimuli for neuroimaging experiments. During the last two decades, this paradigm has contributed to an accumulation of insights about the neural underpinnings of behavior and sense-making in various narratively contextualized situations particularly pertaining to socio-emotional encounters. One of the key questions in neurocinematics is, how do intersubjectively synchronized brain activations relate to subjective experiences? Another question we address is how to bring natural contexts into experimental studies. Seeking to respond to both questions, we suggest neurocinematic studies to examine three manifestations of the same phenomenon side-by-side: subjective experiences of narrative situations, unfolding of narrative stimulus structure, and neural processes that co-constitute the experience. This approach facilitates identifying experientially meaningful activity patterns in the brain and points out what they may mean in relation to shared and communicable contents. Via rich-featured and temporally contextualized narrative stimuli, neurocinematics attempts to contribute to emerging holistic theories of neural dynamics and connectomics explaining typical and atypical interindividual variability.

Laterality and hemispheric specialization of self-face recognition

Inspired by the pioneering work of Eran Zaidel beginning in the early 1970's on the role of the two cerebral hemispheres of the human brain in self-related cognition, we review research on self-face recognition from a laterality perspective. The self-face is an important proxy of the self, and self-face recognition has been used as an indicator of self-awareness more broadly. Over the last half century, behavioral and neurological data, along with over two decades of neuroimaging research evidence have accumulated on this topic, generally concluding a right-hemisphere dominance for self-face recognition. In this review, we briefly revisit the pioneering roots of this work by Sperry, Zaidel & Zaidel, and focus on the important body of neuroimaging literature on self-face recognition it has inspired. We conclude with a brief discussion of current models of self-related processing and future directions for research in this area.

Differential responses in the mirror neuron system during imitation of individual emotional facial expressions and association with autistic traits

The mirror neuron system (MNS), including the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and superior temporal sulcus (STS) plays an important role in action representation and imitation and may be dysfunctional in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it's not clear how these three regions respond and interact during the imitation of different basic facial expressions and whether the pattern of responses is influenced by autistic traits. Thus, we conducted a natural facial expression (happiness, angry, sadness and fear) imitation task in 100 healthy male subjects where expression intensity was measured using facial emotion recognition software (FaceReader) and MNS responses were recorded using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Autistic traits were measured using the Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaire. Results showed that imitation of happy expressions produced the highest expression intensity but a small deactivation in MNS responses, suggesting a lower processing requirement compared to other expressions. A cosine similarity analysis indicated a distinct pattern of MNS responses during imitation of each facial expression with functional intra-hemispheric connectivity between the left IPL and left STS being significantly higher during happy compared to other expressions, while inter-hemispheric connectivity between the left and right IPL differed between imitation of fearful and sad expressions. Furthermore, functional connectivity changes during imitation of each different expression could reliably predict autistic trait scores. Overall, the results provide evidence for distinct patterns of functional connectivity changes between MNS regions during imitation of different emotions which are also associated with autistic traits.

Bidirectional understanding and cooperation: interbrain neural synchronization during social navigation

The complexity of the environment requires humans to solve problems collaboratively. The aim of this study was to investigate the neural mechanism of social navigation in group problem-solving situations. A novel cooperative task was designed in which dyadic participants assumed the role of an operator or a navigator with different skills and knowledge and worked together to complete the task. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy-based hyperscanning, we found stronger interbrain neural synchronization of the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) between dyads when the operator received instructions from the navigator rather than from a computer. The functional connections between the rTPJ and the other brain areas indicated the involvement of the mirror neural system during the task. Further directional analysis using Granger causality analysis revealed a flow of information from the temporal to the parietal and then to the pre-motor cortex in the operator's brain. These findings provide empirical evidence for the neural mechanism of social navigation and highlight the importance of the rTPJ for communication and joint attention in uncertain group problem-solving situations.

Re-cognizing the new self: The neurocognitive plasticity of self-processing following facial transplantation

The face is a defining feature of our individuality, crucial for our social interactions. But what happens when the face connected to the self is radically altered or replaced? We address the plasticity of self-face recognition in the context of facial transplantation. While the acquisition of a new face following facial transplantation is a medical fact, the experience of a new identity is an unexplored psychological outcome. We traced the changes in self-face recognition before and after facial transplantation to understand if and how the transplanted face gradually comes to be perceived and recognized as the recipient's own new face. Neurobehavioral evidence documents a strong representation of the pre-injury appearance pre-operatively, while following the transplantation, the recipient incorporates the new face into his self-identity. The acquisition of this new facial identity is supported by neural activity in medial frontal regions that are considered to integrate psychological and perceptual aspects of the self.

Self/other distinction in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) assessed with a double mirror paradigm

BACKGROUND

Self/other distinction (SOD), which refers to the ability to distinguish one's own body, actions, and mental representations from those of others, is an essential skill for effective social interaction. A large body of clinical evidence suggests that disruptions in SOD may be key to social communication deficits in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In particular, egocentric biases have been found in cognitive, affective, behavioural, and motor domains. However, research in this area is scarce and consists of recognition paradigms that have used only static images; these methods may be insufficient for assessing SOD, given the increasing role of embodiment in our understanding of the pathophysiology of ASD.

METHOD

A single-centre, prospective pilot study was carried out to investigate, for the first time, self-recognition and SOD in seven adolescents with ASD compared with matched, typically developing controls (TDCs) using the "Alter Ego"TM double mirror paradigm. The participants viewed a double mirror in which their own face was gradually morphed into the face of an unfamiliar other (self-to-other sequence) or vice versa (other-to-self sequence); participants were instructed to indicate at which point the morph looked more like their own face than the other's face. Two judgement criteria were used: 1) M1: the threshold at which subjects started to recognize their own face during the other-to-self morphing sequence; 2) M2: the threshold at which subjects started to recognize the other's face during the self-to-other morphing sequence.

RESULTS

Consistent with the predictions, the results showed that the participants with ASD exhibited earlier self-recognition in the other-to-self sequence and delayed other-recognition in the self-to-other sequence, suggesting an egocentric bias. SOD impairments were also marginally correlated with ASD severity, indicating earlier face recognition in more severely affected individuals. Furthermore, in contrast with that of TDCs, the critical threshold for switching between self and other varied with the direction of morphing in ASD participants. Finally, these differences in face recognition and SOD using mirrors, unlike previous research using static images, support the central place of bodily self-consciousness in SOD impairments.

CONCLUSIONS

Although additional research is needed to replicate the results of this preliminary study, it revealed the first behavioural evidence of altered SOD in ASD individuals on an embodied, semiecological face-recognition paradigm. Implications for understanding ASD are discussed from a developmental perspective, and new research and therapeutic perspectives are presented.

Active Viewing Facilitates Gaze to the Eye Region in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Previous studies have shown reduced attention to the eyes in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, most eye-tracking evidence regarding this impairment has been derived from passive viewing tasks. Here, we compared the passive viewing of faces with an active task involving face identification with morphing faces. While typical controls prioritized the eyes over other facial features regardless of viewing condition, autistic children exhibited reduced eye-looking in passive viewing, but displayed increased attention allocation to the eyes when instructed to identify faces. The proportional eye-looking in ASD during facial recognition was negatively related to the autism symptoms severity. These findings provide evidence regarding the specific situations in which diminished eye-looking may rise in young ASD children.

The role of oxytocin in modulating self-other distinction in human brain: a pharmacological fMRI study

Self-other distinction is crucial for human interaction. Although with conflicting results, studies have found that oxytocin (OT) sharpens the self-other perceptual boundary. However, little is known about the effect of OT on self-other perception, especially its neural basis. Moreover, it is unclear whether OT influences self-other discrimination when the other is a child or an adult. This double-blind, placebo-controlled study investigated the effect of OT on self-face perception at the behavioral and neural levels. For the stimuli, we morphed participants' faces and child or adult strangers' faces, resulting in 4 conditions. After treatment with either OT or placebo, participants reported whether a stimulus resembled themselves while being scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Behavioral results showed that people judged adult-morphed faces better than child-morphed faces. Moreover, fMRI results showed that the OT group exhibited increased activity in visual areas and the inferior frontal gyrus for self-faces. This difference was more pronounced in the adult-face condition. In multivariate fMRI and region of interest analyses, better performance in the OT group indicated that OT increased self-other distinction, especially for adult faces and in the left hemisphere. Our study shows a significant effect of OT on self-referential processes, proving the potential effect of OT on a left hemisphere self-network.

The art of film: Perspective on neural clues to repeated attraction to movie watching

This article about possible neural underpinning of repeated attraction to watching movies is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Eran Zaidel, who made outstanding contributions to neuroscience (and loved watching movies). The film is an art form crafted by multiple artists from diverse fields, contributing specialized skills, talents, and creativity to the final product. Attention-attraction to all artworks has deep biological roots. Movies have been attracting audiences repeatedly ever since they were introduced over 100 years ago. Although countless studies analyzed the nature of the art, the neural underpinning of repeated attraction to viewing movies has been understudied. Here, clues gleaned from non-film findings are proposed. The perspective suggests that functions of the mesolimbic "reward pathway" associated with pleasure and joy, the brain regions responding to facial beauty, to pictorial art aesthetics, and to music listening with increased dopamine levels are all recruited in the repeated attraction.

Bone conduction facilitates self-other voice discrimination

One's own voice is one of the most important and most frequently heard voices. Although it is the sound we associate most with ourselves, it is perceived as strange when played back in a recording. One of the main reasons is the lack of bone conduction that is inevitably present when hearing one's own voice while speaking. The resulting discrepancy between experimental and natural self-voice stimuli has significantly impeded self-voice research, rendering it one of the least investigated aspects of self-consciousness. Accordingly, factors that contribute to self-voice perception remain largely unknown. In a series of three studies, we rectified this ecological discrepancy by augmenting experimental self-voice stimuli with bone-conducted vibrotactile stimulation that is present during natural self-voice perception. Combining voice morphing with psychophysics, we demonstrate that specifically self-other but not familiar-other voice discrimination improved for stimuli presented using bone as compared with air conduction. Furthermore, our data outline independent contributions of familiarity and acoustic processing to separating the own from another's voice: although vocal differences increased general voice discrimination, self-voices were more confused with familiar than unfamiliar voices, regardless of their acoustic similarity. Collectively, our findings show that concomitant vibrotactile stimulation improves auditory self-identification, thereby portraying self-voice as a fundamentally multi-modal construct.

Attention and emotion shape self-voice prioritization in speech processing

Both self-voice and emotional speech are salient signals that are prioritized in perception. Surprisingly, self-voice perception has been investigated to a lesser extent than the self-face. Therefore, it remains to be clarified whether self-voice prioritization is boosted by emotion, and whether self-relevance and emotion interact differently when attention is focused on who is speaking vs. what is being said. Thirty participants listened to 210 prerecorded words spoken in one's own or an unfamiliar voice and differing in emotional valence in two tasks, manipulating the attention focus on either speaker identity or speech emotion. Event-related potentials (ERP) of the electroencephalogram (EEG) informed on the temporal dynamics of self-relevance, emotion, and attention effects. Words spoken in one's own voice elicited a larger N1 and Late Positive Potential (LPP), but smaller N400. Identity and emotion interactively modulated the P2 (self-positivity bias) and LPP (self-negativity bias). Attention to speaker identity modulated more strongly ERP responses within 600 ms post-word onset (N1, P2, N400), whereas attention to speech emotion altered the late component (LPP). However, attention did not modulate the interaction of self-relevance and emotion. These findings suggest that the self-voice is prioritized for neural processing at early sensory stages, and that both emotion and attention shape self-voice prioritization in speech processing. They also confirm involuntary processing of salient signals (self-relevance and emotion) even in situations in which attention is deliberately directed away from those cues. These findings have important implications for a better understanding of symptoms thought to arise from aberrant self-voice monitoring such as auditory verbal hallucinations.

Hippocampal Neuronal Integrity and Functional Connectivity Within the Default Mode Network in Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Multimodal Investigation

Background: In older people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), the relationship between early changes in functional connectivity and in vivo changes in key neurometabolites is not known. Two established correlates of MCI diagnosis are decreased N-acetylaspartate (NAA) in the hippocampus, indicative of decreased neuronal integrity, and changes in the default mode network (DMN) functional network. If and how these measures interrelate is yet to be established, and such understanding may provide insight into the processes underpinning observed cognitive decline. Objectives: To determine the relationship between NAA levels in the left hippocampus and functional connectivity within the DMN in an aging cohort. Methods: In a sample of 51 participants with MCI and 30 controls, hippocampal NAA was determined using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and DMN connectivity was quantified using resting-state functional MRI. The association between hippocampal NAA and the DMN functional connectivity was tested within the MCI group and separately within the control group. Results: In the DMN, we showed a significant inverse association between functional connectivity and hippocampal NAA in 20 specific brain connections for patients with MCI. This was despite no evidence of any associations in the healthy control group or group differences in either of these measures alone. Conclusions: This study suggests that decreased neuronal integrity in the hippocampus is associated with functional change within the DMN for those with MCI, in contrast to healthy older adults. These results highlight the potential of multimodal investigations to better understand the processes associated with cognitive decline. Impact statement This study measured activity within the default mode network (DMN) and quantified N-acetylaspartate (NAA), a measure of neuronal integrity, within the hippocampus in participants with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy controls. In participants with MCI, NAA levels were inversely associated with connectivity between specific regions of the DMN, a relationship not evident in healthy controls. This association was present even in the absence of group differences in DMN connectivity or NAA levels. This research illustrates the possibility of using multiple magnetic resonance modalities for more sensitive measures of early cognitive decline to identify and intervene earlier.

Face yourself: The social neuroscience of mirror gazing

In philosophical and psychological accounts alike, it has been claimed that mirror gazing is like looking at ourselves as others. Social neuroscience and social psychology offer support for this view by showing that we use similar brain and cognitive mechanisms during perception of both others’ and our own face. I analyse these premises to investigate the factors affecting the perception of one’s own mirror image. I analyse mechanisms and processes involved in face perception, mimicry, and emotion recognition, and defend the following argument: because perception of others’ face is affected by our feelings toward them, it is likely that feelings toward ourselves affect our responses to the mirror image. One implication is that negative self-feelings can affect mirror gazing instantiating a vicious cycle where the negative emotional response reflects a previously acquired attitude toward oneself. I conclude by discussing implications of this view for psychology and social studies.

The effects of prefrontal vs. parietal cortex transcranial direct current stimulation on craving, inhibition, and measures of self-esteem

While prefrontal cortex dysfunction has been implicated in high food cravings, other cortical regions, like the parietal cortex, are potentially also involved in regulating craving. This study explored the effects of stimulating the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) on food craving state and trait. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was administered at 1.5 mA for 5 consecutive days. Participants received 20 min of IPL, DLPFC, or sham stimulation (SHAM) each day which consisted of two rounds of 10-min stimulation, divided by a 10-min mindfulness task break. In addition, we studied inhibition and subjective psychological aspects like body image and self-esteem state and trait. To decompose immediate and cumulative effects, we measured the following on days 1 and 5: inhibition through the Go/No-go task; and food craving, self-esteem, and body appreciation through a battery of questionnaires. We found that false alarm errors decreased in the participants receiving active stimulation in the DLPFC (DLPFC-group). In contrast, false alarm errors increased in participants receiving active stimulation in the IPL (IPL-group). At the same time, no change was found in the participants receiving SHAM (SHAM-group). There was a trending reduction in craving trait in all groups. Momentary craving was decreased in the DLPFC-group and increased in IPL-group, yet a statistical difference was not reached. According to time and baseline, self-esteem and body perception improved in the IPL-group. Furthermore, self-esteem trait significantly improved over time in the DLPFC-group and IPL-group. These preliminary results indicate that tDCS modulates inhibition in frontoparietal areas with opposite effects, enhancing it in DLPFC and impairing it in IPL. Moreover, craving is moderately linked to inhibition, self-esteem, and body appreciation which seem not to be affected by neuromodulation but may rely instead on broader regions as more complex constructs. Finally, the fractionated protocol can effectively influence inhibition with milder effects on other constructs.

The salience network is activated during self-recognition from both first-person and third-person perspectives

We usually observe ourselves from two perspectives. One is the first-person perspective, which we perceive directly with our own eyes, and the other is the third-person perspective, which we observe ourselves in a mirror or a picture. However, whether the self-recognition associated with these two perspectives has a common or separate neural basis remains unclear. To address this, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine brain activity while participants viewed pretaped video clips of themselves and others engaged in meal preparation taken from first-person and third-person perspectives. We found that the first-person behavioral videos of the participants and others induced greater activation in the premotor-intraparietal region. In contrast, the third-person behavioral videos induced greater activation in the default mode network compared with the first-person videos. Regardless of the perspective, the videos of the participants induced greater activation in the salience network than the videos of others. On the other hand, the videos of others induced greater activation in the precuneus and lingual gyrus than the videos of the participants. These results suggest that the salience network is commonly involved in self-recognition from both perspectives, even though the brain regions involved in action observation for the two perspectives are distinct.

The own-voice benefit for word recognition in early bilinguals

The current study examines the self-voice benefit in an early bilingual population. Female Cantonese-English bilinguals produced words containing Cantonese contrasts. A subset of these minimal pairs was selected as stimuli for a perception task. Speakers' productions were grouped according to how acoustically contrastive their pronunciation of each minimal pair was and these groupings were used to design personalized experiments for each participant, featuring their own voice and the voices of others' similarly-contrastive tokens. The perception task was a two-alternative forced-choice word identification paradigm in which participants heard isolated Cantonese words, which had undergone synthesis to mask the original talker identity. Listeners were more accurate in recognizing minimal pairs produced in their own (disguised) voice than recognizing the realizations of speakers who maintain similar degrees of phonetic contrast for the same minimal pairs. Generally, individuals with larger phonetic contrasts were also more accurate in word identification for self and other voices overall. These results provide evidence for an own-voice benefit for early bilinguals. These results suggest that the phonetic distributions that undergird phonological contrasts are heavily shaped by one's own phonetic realizations.

Aberrant Dynamic Functional Connectivity of Posterior Cingulate Cortex Subregions in Major Depressive Disorder With Suicidal Ideation

Accumulating evidence indicates the presence of structural and functional abnormalities of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) with suicidal ideation (SI). Nevertheless, the subregional-level dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) of the PCC has not been investigated in MDD with SI. We therefore sought to investigate the presence of aberrant dFC variability in PCC subregions in MDD patients with SI. We analyzed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 31 unmedicated MDD patients with SI (SI group), 56 unmedicated MDD patients without SI (NSI group), and 48 matched healthy control (HC) subjects. The sliding-window method was applied to characterize the whole-brain dFC of each PCC subregion [the ventral PCC (vPCC) and dorsal PCC (dPCC)]. In addition, we evaluated associations between clinical variables and the aberrant dFC variability of those brain regions showing significant between-group differences. Compared with HCS, the SI and the NSI groups exhibited higher dFC variability between the left dPCC and left fusiform gyrus and between the right vPCC and left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). The SI group showed higher dFC variability between the left vPCC and left IFG than the NSI group. Furthermore, the dFC variability between the left vPCC and left IFG was positively correlated with Scale for Suicidal Ideation (SSI) score in patients with MDD (i.e., the SI and NSI groups). Our results indicate that aberrant dFC variability between the vPCC and IFG might provide a neural-network explanation for SI and may provide a potential target for future therapeutic interventions in MDD patients with SI.

Flights and Perchings of the BrainMind: A Temporospatial Approach to Psychotherapy

This article introduces a process-oriented approach for improving present moment conceptualization in psychotherapy that is in alignment with neuroscience: the Temporospatial movements of mind (TSMM) model. We elaborate on seven temporal movements that describe the moment-to-moment morphogenesis of emotional feelings and thoughts from inception to maturity. Temporal refers to the passage of time through which feelings and thoughts develop, and electromagnetic activity, that among other responsibilities, bind information across time. Spatial dynamics extend from an undifferentiated to three dimensional experiences of emotional and cognitive processes. Neurophysiologically, spatial refers to structures within the brain and their varying interactions with one another. This article culminates in the development of an atheoretical temporospatial grid that may help clinicians conceptualize where patients are in their cognitive and emotional development to further guide technique.

Self-Conscious Emotions and the Right Fronto-Temporal and Right Temporal Parietal Junction

For more than two decades, research focusing on both clinical and non-clinical populations has suggested a key role for specific regions in the regulation of self-conscious emotions. It is speculated that both the expression and the interpretation of self-conscious emotions are critical in humans for action planning and response, communication, learning, parenting, and most social encounters. Empathy, Guilt, Jealousy, Shame, and Pride are all categorized as self-conscious emotions, all of which are crucial components to one’s sense of self. There has been an abundance of evidence pointing to the right Fronto-Temporal involvement in the integration of cognitive processes underlying the expression of these emotions. Numerous regions within the right hemisphere have been identified including the right temporal parietal junction (rTPJ), the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and the inferior parietal lobule (IPL). In this review, we aim to investigate patient cases, in addition to clinical and non-clinical studies. We also aim to highlight these specific brain regions pivotal to the right hemispheric dominance observed in the neural correlates of such self-conscious emotions and provide the potential role that self-conscious emotions play in evolution.

Neural Representation of the Parent-Child Attachment from Infancy to Adulthood

Attachment theory is built on the assumption of consistency; the mother–infant bond is thought to underpin the life-long representations individuals construct of attachment relationships. Still, consistency in the individual’s neural response to attachment-related stimuli representing his or her entire relational history has not been investigated. Mothers and children were followed across two decades and videotaped in infancy (3–6 months), childhood (9–12 years) and young adulthood (18–24 years). In adulthood, participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while exposed to videos of own mother–child interactions (Self) vs unfamiliar interactions (Other). Self-stimuli elicited greater activations across preregistered nodes of the human attachment network, including thalamus-to-brainstem, amygdala, hippocampus, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), insula and temporal cortex. Critically, self-stimuli were age-invariant in most regions of interest despite large variability in social behavior, and Bayesian analysis showed strong evidence for lack of age-related differences. Psycho–physiological interaction analysis indicated that self-stimuli elicited tighter connectivity between ACC and anterior insula, consolidating an interface associating information from exteroceptive and interceptive sources to sustain attachment representations. Child social engagement behavior was individually stable from infancy to adulthood and linked with greater ACC and insula response to self-stimuli. Findings demonstrate overlap in circuits sustaining parental and child attachment and accord with perspectives on the continuity of attachment across human development.

Insights on embodiment induced by visuo-tactile stimulation during robotic telepresence

Using a simple neuroscience-inspired procedure to beam human subjects into robots, we previously demonstrated by visuo-motor manipulations that embodiment into a robot can enhance the acceptability and closeness felt towards the robot. In that study, the feelings of likeability and closeness toward the robot were significantly related to the sense of agency, independently of the sensations of enfacement and location. Here, using the same paradigm we investigated the effect of a purely sensory manipulation on the sense of robotic embodiment associated to social cognition. Wearing a head-mounted display, participants saw the visual scene captured from the robot eyes. By positioning a mirror in front of the robot, subjects saw themselves as a robot. Tactile stimulation was provided by stroking synchronously or not with a paintbrush the same location of the subject and robot faces. In contrast to the previous motor induction of embodiment which particularly affected agency, tactile induction yields more generalized effects on the perception of ownership, location and agency. Interestingly, the links between positive social feelings towards the robot and the strength of the embodiment sensations were not observed. We conclude that the embodiment into a robot is not sufficient in itself to induce changes in social cognition.

Are We Right about the Right TPJ? A Review of Brain Stimulation and Social Cognition in the Right Temporal Parietal Junction

In the past decade, the functional role of the TPJ (Temporal Parietal Junction) has become more evident in terms of its contribution to social cognition. Studies have revealed the TPJ as a ‘distinguisher’ of self and other with research focused on non-clinical populations as well as in individuals with Autism and Type I Schizophrenia. Further research has focused on the integration of self-other distinctions with proprioception. Much of what we now know about the causal role of the right TPJ derives from TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation), rTMS repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation), and tDCS (transcranial Direct Cortical Stimulation). In this review, we focus on the role of the right TPJ as a moderator of self, which is integrated and distinct from ‘other’ and how brain stimulation has established the causal relationship between the underlying cortex and agency.

Mimetic Self-Reflexivity and Intersubjectivity in Complementary and Alternative Medicine Practices: The Mirror Neuron System in Breast Cancer Survivorship

This study examines complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) providers' practices in the treatment of their breast cancer survivor (BCS) clients and interprets these practices within the context of existing neuroscientific research on the mirror neuron system (MNS). Purposive and snowball sampling was conducted to recruit CAM providers (N = 15) treating BCSs from integrative medicine centers, educational institutions, private practices, and professional medical associations across the United States. In-depth semi-structured interviewing (N = 252 single-spaced pages) and inductive qualitative content analysis reveal CAM therapeutic practices emphasize a diachronic form of mimetic self-reflexivity and a serendipitous form of mimetic intersubjectivity in BCS pain management to allow the providers to tune-in to their clients' internal states over time and experience themselves as an embodied subject in an imaginative, shared space. By employing imagination and an intentional vulnerability in their embodied simulation of the others' internal states, CAM providers co-create experiences of pain while recognizing what about the other remains an unknown. Although MNs provide the mechanism for imitation and simulation underlying empathy through a neuronally wired grasp of the other's intentionality, the study suggests that examining mimetic self-reflexivity and intersubjectivity in the therapeutic space may allow for a shared simulation of participants' subjective experiences of pain and potentially inform research on self-recognition and self-other discrimination as an index of self-awareness which implicates the MNS in embodied social cognition in imaginative ways.

"Can you hear me now?" Video conference coping strategies and experience during COVID-19 and beyond

BACKGROUND

During COVID-19 the workforce quickly adapted to using existing video-conferencing tools in order to work from home.

OBJECTIVE

To explore use and experience of remote video-facilitated work practices in response to COVID-19: termed 'COVID Response Zoom-style Interactions (CRAZI)'.

METHODS

A cross sectional study via a 66-item online survey for health and medical research and education sector workers. The survey included 8 sections: 1) pre-COVID video-conferencing meeting habits, 2) CRAZI meeting habits, 3) socialising, 4) CRAZI fashion, 5) behaviour standards, 6) family life, 7) future work, 8) participant demographics. Main outcomes were pre-COVID to CRAZI differences in frequency, length and type of video-based meetings, and video-conferencing experience.

RESULTS

202 participants, mostly Australian (median age 36-45, IQR 26-55 years) completed the survey. Women-to-men ratio was 3 : 1, 44.6%had children. COVID-19 changed video-conferencing frequency and maximum meeting size. Most participants found CRAZI meetings tiring and hard. Casual clothes dominated dress code (71.1%), pets were commonly seen. "Can you hear me now" was a commonly heard phrase. Good and bad behaviour were described, with formal codes of CRAZI conduct missing (58.7%) or unknown (21.9%). 76.6%of participants observed a child interrupting a CRAZI meeting, parents were mostly female. Despite challenges, most participants (76.6%) favoured video-conferencing post-pandemic, but preference for continuing to work from home varied.

CONCLUSIONS

CRAZI work, while tiring, has fostered different work-practices that may continue beyond the pandemic. Working from home with children adds joy for others, but complexity for workers. Pets may help owners and co-workers cope with the pandemic.

EEG Spatiotemporal Patterns Underlying Self-other Voice Discrimination

There is growing evidence showing that the representation of the human “self” recruits special systems across different functions and modalities. Compared to self-face and self-body representations, few studies have investigated neural underpinnings specific to self-voice. Moreover, self-voice stimuli in those studies were consistently presented through air and lacking bone conduction, rendering the sound of self-voice stimuli different to the self-voice heard during natural speech. Here, we combined psychophysics, voice-morphing technology, and high-density EEG in order to identify the spatiotemporal patterns underlying self-other voice discrimination (SOVD) in a population of 26 healthy participants, both with air- and bone-conducted stimuli. We identified a self-voice-specific EEG topographic map occurring around 345 ms post-stimulus and activating a network involving insula, cingulate cortex, and medial temporal lobe structures. Occurrence of this map was modulated both with SOVD task performance and bone conduction. Specifically, the better participants performed at SOVD task, the less frequently they activated this network. In addition, the same network was recruited less frequently with bone conduction, which, accordingly, increased the SOVD task performance. This work could have an important clinical impact. Indeed, it reveals neural correlates of SOVD impairments, believed to account for auditory-verbal hallucinations, a common and highly distressing psychiatric symptom.

Fish self-awareness: limits of current knowledge and theoretical expectations

Animal self-awareness is divided into three levels: bodily, social, and introspective self-awareness. Research has focused mainly on the introspection of so-called higher organisms such as mammals. Herein, we turn our attention to fish and provide opinions on their self-awareness based on a review of the scientific literature. Our specific aims are to discuss whether fish (A) could have a neural substrate supporting self-awareness and whether they display signs of (B) social and (C) introspective self-awareness. The present knowledge does not exclude the possibility that fish could have a simple neocortex or other structures that support certain higher cognitive processes, as the function of the primate cerebral cortex can be replaced by other neurological structures. Fish are known to display winner, loser, and audience effects, which could be interpreted as signs of social self-awareness. The audience effect may be explained not only by ethological cost and benefit theory but also by the concept of public self-awareness, which comes from human studies. The behavioural and neural manifestations of depression may be induced in fish under social subordination and may be viewed as certain awareness of a social status. The current findings on fish introspective self-awareness have been debated in the scientific community and, therefore, demand replication to provide more evidence. Further research is needed to verify the outlined ideas; however, the current knowledge indicates that fish are capable of certain higher cognitive processes, which raises questions and implications regarding ethics and welfare in fish-related research and husbandry.

Self-Face Activates the Dopamine Reward Pathway without Awareness

The self-face advantage has been demonstrated not only at the supraliminal level, but also at the subliminal level. However, it remains unclear whether subliminal self-face processing involves the same neural networks as those for supraliminal self-face processing. Here, we show that the ventral tegmental area, a center of the dopamine reward pathway, exhibited greater activation to subliminal presentations of the self-face than those of the others’ faces, whereas subliminal presentations of the others’ faces induced activation in the amygdala, which generally responds to unfamiliar information. This self-other difference in brain response was consistently observed even when the facial configuration was modified without changing the shape of the facial parts. The present findings suggest that the dopamine reward pathway is involved in automatic self-advantage in face processing, and the subliminal self-other facial discrimination does not depend on information of the precise facial configuration.

Neural Circuits, Microtubule Processing, Brain's Electromagnetic Field-Components of Self-Awareness

The known theories discussing the essence of consciousness have been recently updated. This prompts an attempt to integrate these explanations concerning several distinct components of the consciousness phenomenon such as the ego, and qualia perceptions. Therefore, it is useful to consider the latest publications on the 'Orch OR' and 'cemi' theories, which assume that quantum processing occurs in microtubules and that the brain's endogenous electromagnetic field is important. The authors combine these explanations with their own theory describing the neural circuits realizing imagery. They try to present such an interdisciplinary, integrated theoretical model in a manner intuitively understandable to people with a typical medical education. In order to do this, they even refer to intuitively understandable metaphors. The authors maintain that an effective comprehension of consciousness is important for health care professionals because its disorders are frequent medical symptoms in emergencies, during general anesthesia and in the course of cognitive disorders in elderly people. The authors emphasize the current possibilities to verify these theses regarding the essence of consciousness thanks to the development of functional brain imaging methods-magnetoencephalography, transcranial magnetic stimulation-as well as clinical studies on the modification of perceptions and feelings by such techniques as mindfulness and the use of certain psychoactive substances, especially among people with self-awareness and identity disorders.

Effects of dual-task interference on swallowing in healthy aging adults

A wide body of literature has demonstrated that the neural representation of healthy swallowing is mostly bilateral, with one hemisphere dominant over the other. While several studies have demonstrated the presence of laterality for swallowing related functions among young adults, the data on older adults are still growing. The purpose of this paper is to investigate potential changes in hemispheric dominance in healthy aging adults for swallowing related tasks using a behavioral dual-task paradigm. A modified dual-task paradigm was designed to investigate the potential reduction in hemispherical specialization for swallowing function. Eighty healthy right-handed participants in the study were divided into two groups [Group 1: young adults (18–40 years) and Group 2: older adults (65 and above)]. All the participants performed a timed water swallow test at baseline and with two interference conditions (silent word repetition, and facial recognition). The results of the study revealed the following 1) a statistically significant effect of age on swallow performance; 2) statistically significant effect of each of the interference tasks on two of the swallow measures (VPS and VPT) in younger adults; and 3) no significant effect of the interference tasks on the swallowing performance of older adults. These findings suggest that aging substantially affects swallowing in older individuals, and this potentially accompanies a reduction in the hemispheric specialization for swallowing related tasks.

The emergent relationship between temporoparietal junction and anosognosia in Alzheimer's disease

Anosognosia and impairment of insight are characteristic features of Alzheimer's disease (AD), which can lead to delays in appropriate medical care and significant family discord. The default mode network (DMN), a distributed but highly connected network of brain regions more active during rest than during task, is integrally involved in awareness. DMN dysfunction is common in AD, and disrupted communication between memory-related and self-related DMN networks is associated with anosognosia in AD patients. In addition, the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is a key region of the "social brain" and also contributes to representations of the self. The exact classification of the TPJ within the DMN is unclear, though connections between the TPJ and DMN have been highlighted in multiple avenues of research. Here we discuss the relationship between the TPJ, DMN, and AD, as well as the potential involvement of the TPJ in anosognosia in AD. We review past and present findings to raise attention to the TPJ, with a specific emphasis on neuroimaging technologies which suggest a pivotal role of the TPJ within large-scale brain networks linked to anosognosia in AD.

The perspectives of mapping and monitoring of the sense of self in neurosurgical patients

Surgical treatment of tumors, epileptic foci or of vascular origin, requires a detailed individual pre-surgical workup and intra-operative surveillance of brain functions to minimize the risk of post-surgical neurological deficits and decline of quality of life. Most attention is attributed to language, motor functions, and perception. However, higher cognitive functions such as social cognition, personality, and the sense of self may be affected by brain surgery. To date, the precise localization and the network patterns of brain regions involved in such functions are not yet fully understood, making the assessment of risks of related post-surgical deficits difficult. It is in the interest of neurosurgeons to understand with which neural systems related to selfhood and personality they are interfering during surgery. Recent neuroscience research using virtual reality and clinical observations suggest that the insular cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, and temporo-parietal junction are important components of a neural system dedicated to self-consciousness based on multisensory bodily processing, including exteroceptive and interoceptive cues (bodily self-consciousness (BSC)). Here, we argue that combined extra- and intra-operative approaches using targeted cognitive testing, functional imaging and EEG, virtual reality, combined with multisensory stimulations, may contribute to the assessment of the BSC and related cognitive aspects. Although the usefulness of particular biomarkers, such as cardiac and respiratory signals linked to virtual reality, and of heartbeat evoked potentials as a surrogate marker for intactness of multisensory integration for intra-operative monitoring has to be proved, systemic and automatized testing of BSC in neurosurgical patients will improve future surgical outcome.

Corticospinal Excitability during a Perspective Taking Task as Measured by TMS-Induced Motor Evoked Potentials

Only by understanding the ability to take a third-person perspective can we begin to elucidate the neural processes responsible for one’s inimitable conscious experience. The current study examined differences in hemispheric laterality during a first-person perspective (1PP) and third-person perspective (3PP) taking task, using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Participants were asked to take either the 1PP or 3PP when identifying the number of spheres in a virtual scene. During this task, single-pulse TMS was delivered to the motor cortex of both the left and right hemispheres of 10 healthy volunteers. Measures of TMS-induced motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) of the contralateral abductor pollicis brevis (APB) were employed as an indicator of lateralized cortical activation. The data suggest that the right hemisphere is more important in discriminating between 1PP and 3PP. These data add a novel method for determining perspective taking and add to the literature supporting the role of the right hemisphere in meta representation.

Gray-Matter Expansion of Social Brain Networks in Individuals High in Public Self-Consciousness

Self-consciousness is a personality trait associated with an individual’s concern regarding observable (public) and unobservable (private) aspects of self. Prompted by previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies, we examined possible gray-matter expansions in emotion-related and default mode networks in individuals with higher public or private self-consciousness. One hundred healthy young adults answered the Japanese version of the Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS) questionnaire and underwent structural MRI. A voxel-based morphometry analysis revealed that individuals scoring higher on the public SCS showed expansions of gray matter in the emotion-related regions of the cingulate and insular cortices and in the default mode network of the precuneus and medial prefrontal cortex. In addition, these gray-matter expansions were particularly related to the trait of “concern about being evaluated by others”, which was one of the subfactors constituting public self-consciousness. Conversely, no relationship was observed between gray-matter volume in any brain regions and the private SCS scores. This is the first study showing that the personal trait of concern regarding public aspects of the self may cause long-term substantial structural changes in social brain networks.

Common and distinct brain networks of autoscopic phenomena

OBJECTIVE

Autoscopic phenomena (AP) are illusory own body reduplications characterized by the visual perception of a second own body in extrapersonal space, and include three main forms: autoscopic hallucination (AH), heautoscopy (HAS) and out-of-body-experience (OBE). Past research showed that lesions were heterogeneously distributed and affected many different brain regions within and across patients, while small case series suggested that AP lesions converge in temporo-parietal and parieto-occipital cortex. As only few studies investigated each form of AP separately, it remains unknown whether the three AP are characterized by common and distinct brain mechanisms.

METHODS

Here, we applied lesion network analysis in 26 neurological AP patients and determined their common and distinct functional connectivity patterns.

RESULTS

We report that all localize to a single common brain network at the bilateral temporo-parietal junction, further associated with specific patterns of functional connectivity, defining each type of AP. OBE resulted from a brain network connected to bilateral angular gyrus, right precuneus, and right inferior frontal gyrus, differing from AH with a brain network connected to bilateral precuneus, inferior temporal gyrus, and cerebellum. HAS resulted from a brain network connected to left inferior frontal gyrus, left insula and left parahippocampus.

CONCLUSION

The present data identify the temporo-parietal junction as the common core region for AP and show that each form of AP recruits additional specific networks, associated with different sensorimotor and self-related sub-networks.

Self-awareness buffers the consequences of negative feedback: Evidence from an ERP study

Previous studies have found that self-awareness can help people to recruit more cognitive resources, while people with more cognitive resources can better buffer the detrimental effects of negative events. However, it is not clear whether self-awareness can directly buffer the consequences of negative feedback (i.e., reducing neural sensitivity to negative feedback). To explore this issue, we used a scrambled sentence task (SST) to manipulate participants' self-awareness (self vs. other) and investigated whether outcome evaluations in a gambling task are modulated by the self-awareness priming. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while 27 normal adults performed a gambling task. The ERP analysis focused on the feedback-related negativity (FRN), reward positivity (RewP) and P300 component. We found that the self-awareness priming resulted in a smaller FRN response to the losses compared with the other-awareness priming. There was no significant difference in the RewP response to wins between the self-awareness condition and the other-awareness condition. We also found that the self-awareness condition evoked larger P300 amplitude than the other-awareness condition. The present findings suggest that self-awareness can help people to cope with negative feedback in the early semiautomatic outcome evaluation stage (i.e., reducing neural sensitivity to negative feedback) and enhance top-down evaluation to both positive and negative feedback in the late and deliberate stage, providing direct evidence of the adaptive function of self-awareness on outcome experience.

Neural correlates of beauty retouching to enhance attractiveness of self-depictions in women

Beauty filters, while often employed for retouching photos to appear more attractive on social media, when used in excess cause images to give a distorted impression. The neural mechanisms underlying this change in facial attractiveness according to beauty retouching level remain unknown. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging in women as they viewed photos of their own face or unknown faces that had been retouched at three levels: no, mild, and extreme. The activity in the nucleus accumbens (NA) exhibited a positive correlation with facial attractiveness, whereas amygdala activity showed a negative correlation with attractiveness. Even though the participants rated others' faces as more attractive than their own, the NA showed increased activity only for their mildly retouched own face and the amygdala exhibited greater activation in the others' faces condition than the own face condition. Moreover, amygdala activity was greater for extremely retouched faces than for unretouched or mildly retouched faces for both conditions. Frontotemporal and cortical midline areas showed greater activation for one's own than others' faces, but such self-related activation was absent when extremely retouched. These results suggest that neural activity dynamically switches between the NA and amygdala according to perceived attractiveness of one's face.

Neural representations of own-voice in the human auditory cortex

We have a keen sensitivity when it comes to the perception of our own voices. We can detect not only the differences between ourselves and others, but also slight modifications of our own voices. Here, we examined the neural correlates underlying such sensitive perception of one's own voice. In the experiments, we modified the subjects' own voices by using five types of filters. The subjects rated the similarity of the presented voices to their own. We compared BOLD (Blood Oxygen Level Dependent) signals between the voices that subjects rated as least similar to their own voice and those they rated as most similar. The contrast revealed that the bilateral superior temporal gyrus exhibited greater activities while listening to the voice least similar to their own voice and lesser activation while listening to the voice most similar to their own. Our results suggest that the superior temporal gyrus is involved in neural sharpening for the own-voice. The lesser degree of activations observed by the voices that were similar to the own-voice indicates that these areas not only respond to the differences between self and others, but also respond to the finer details of own-voices.

Frontoparietal microstructural damage mediates age-dependent working memory decline in face and body information processing: Evidence for dichotomic hemispheric bias mechanisms

Age-associated damage in the microstructure of frontally-based connections (e.g. genu of the corpus callosum and superior longitudinal fasciculus) is believed to lead to impairments in processing speed and executive function. Using mediation analysis, we tested the potential contribution of callosal and frontoparietal association tracts to age-dependent effects on cognition/executive function as measured with 1-back working memory tasks for visual stimulus categories (i.e. faces and non-emotional bodies) in a group of 55 healthy adults (age range 23-79 years). Constrained spherical deconvolution-based tractography was employed to reconstruct the genu/prefrontal section of the corpus callosum (GCC) and the central/second branch of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (CB-SLF). Age was associated with (i) reductions in fractional anisotropy (FA) in the GCC and in the right and left CB-SLF and (iii) decline in visual object category processing. Mediation analysis revealed that microstructural damage in right hemispheric CB-SLF is associated with age-dependent decline in face processing likely reflecting the stimulus-specific/holistic nature of face processing within dedicated/specialized frontoparietal routes. By contrast, microstructural damage in left hemispheric CB-SLF associated with age-dependent decline in non-emotional body processing, consistent with the more abstract nature of non-emotional body categories. In sum, our findings suggest that frontoparietal microstructural damage mediates age-dependent decline in face and body information processing in a manner that reflects the hemispheric bias of holistic vs. abstract nature of face and non-emotional body category processing.

How We Perceive Others Resembling Us

Eye contact is essential for social cognition, acting as an important tool for social communication. While differences in face scanning patterns concerning familiarity have been thoroughly investigated, the impact of facial similarity on gaze behavior has not been examined yet. We addressed this topic by recording subjects' eye-directed gazing while looking at faces that were individually created systematically varying in terms of similarity to the self-face and familiarity. Subjects' self-faces were morphed into three other faces including a close friend of the same sex. Afterwards, they rated similarity to their self-face of those morphed face stimuli in a separate rating task. Our results show a general preference for the eyes' area as well as differences regarding fixation patterns depending on similarity to the self-face. The lower the similarity to the self-face, the more fixations on the eyes' area. Subjects' ratings followed a linear line, indicating well-pronounced face perception. Nevertheless, other faces were rated faster than the self-face independent of familiarity, while morphed faces got the slowest ratings. Our results mirror the importance of similarity to the self-face as a factor shaping the way we look at the eyes of others explaining variance apart from familiarity.