Social cognition and the anterior temporal lobes: a review and theoretical framework

Did It Change Your Mind? Neural Substrates of Purchase Intention Change and Product Information

Price and customer ratings are perhaps the two most important pieces of information consumers rely on when shopping online. This study aimed to elucidate the neural mechanism by which the introduction of these two types of information influences the purchase intention of potential consumers for hedonic products. Participants performed a lip-care product shopping task during functional magnetic resonance imaging, in which they re-disclosed purchase intentions referring to the information of price or rating provided about the products that they had previously disclosed their purchase intentions without any information. Data from 38 young female participants were analyzed to identify the underlying neural regions associated with the intention change and product information. The bilateral frontopolar cortex, bilateral dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), and left insula activated higher for the unchanged than changed intention condition. The right dACC and bilateral insula also activated more toward the price than the rating condition, whereas the medial prefrontal cortex and bilateral temporoparietal junction responded in the opposite direction. These results seem to reflect the shift to exploratory decision-making strategies and increased salience in maintaining purchase intentions despite referring to provided information and to highlight the involvement of social cognition-related regions in reference to customer ratings rather than price.

Development of the mentalizing network structures and theory of mind in extremely preterm youth

Adolescents born preterm (<37 weeks of gestation) are at elevated risk for deficits in social cognition and peer relationships. Theory of Mind (ToM) is a complex form of social cognition important for regulating social interactions. ToM and the underlying mentalizing network continue to develop across adolescence. The present study recruited 48 adolescents (12-17 years old) who were either born extremely preterm (EPT; <28 weeks of gestation) or full-term (FT) at birth. Cortical thickness, gray matter volume and surface area were measured in four regions of the mentalizing network: the temporoparietal junction, anterior temporal cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus and frontal pole (mBA10). We also assessed the adolescents' performance on a ToM task. Findings revealed both group differences and group-by-age interaction effects in the gray matter indices within the temporal lobe regions of the mentalizing network. The EPT group also performed significantly worse than the FT group on the ToM task. The cortical structural measures that discriminated the EPT and FT groups were not related to ToM performance. These results highlight altered developmental changes in brain regions underlying mentalizing functions in EPT adolescents relative to FT controls.

A transdiagnostic review of neuroimaging studies of apathy and disinhibition in dementia

Apathy and disinhibition are common and highly distressing neuropsychiatric symptoms associated with negative outcomes in persons with dementia. This paper is a critical review of functional and structural neuroimaging studies of these symptoms transdiagnostically in dementia of the Alzheimer type, which is characterized by prominent amnesia early in the disease course, and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, characterized by early social-comportmental deficits. We describe the prevalence and clinical correlates of these symptoms and describe methodological issues, including difficulties with symptom definition and different measurement instruments. We highlight the heterogeneity of findings, noting however, a striking similarity of the set of brain regions implicated across clinical diagnoses and symptoms. These regions involve several key nodes of the salience network, and we describe the functions and anatomical connectivity of these brain areas, as well as present a new theoretical account of disinhibition in dementia. Future avenues for research are discussed, including the importance of transdiagnostic studies, measuring subdomains of apathy and disinhibition, and examining different units of analysis for deepening our understanding of the networks and mechanisms underlying these extremely distressing symptoms.

Diminished preparatory physiological responses in frontotemporal lobar degeneration syndromes

Researchers typically study physiological responses either after stimulus onset or when the emotional valence of an upcoming stimulus is revealed. Yet, participants may also respond when they are told that an emotional stimulus is about to be presented even without knowing its valence. Increased physiological responding during this time may reflect a 'preparation for action'. The generation of such physiological responses may be supported by frontotemporal regions of the brain that are vulnerable to damage in frontotemporal lobar degeneration. We examined preparatory physiological responses and their structural and functional neural correlate in five frontotemporal lobar degeneration clinical subtypes (behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, n = 67; semantic variant primary progressive aphasia, n = 35; non-fluent variant primary progressive aphasia, n = 30; corticobasal syndrome, n = 32; progressive supranuclear palsy, n = 30). Comparison groups included patients with Alzheimer's disease (n = 56) and healthy controls (n = 35). Preparatory responses were quantified as cardiac interbeat interval decreases (i.e. heart rate increases) from baseline to an 'instruction period', during which participants were told to watch the upcoming emotional film but not provided the film's valence. Patients' behavioural symptoms (apathy and disinhibition) were also evaluated via a caregiver-reported measure. Compared to healthy controls and Alzheimer's disease, the frontotemporal lobar degeneration group showed significantly smaller preparatory responses. When comparing each frontotemporal lobar degeneration clinical subtype with healthy controls and Alzheimer's disease, significant group differences emerged for behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia and progressive supranuclear palsy. Behavioural analyses revealed that frontotemporal lobar degeneration patients showed greater disinhibition and apathy compared to Alzheimer's disease patients. Further, these group differences in disinhibition (but not apathy) were mediated by patients' smaller preparatory responses. Voxel-based morphometry and resting-state functional MRI analyses revealed that across patients and healthy controls, smaller preparatory responses were associated with smaller volume and lower functional connectivity in a circuit that included the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and cortical and subcortical regions of the salience network. Diminished preparatory physiological responding in frontotemporal lobar degeneration may reflect a lack of preparation for actions that are appropriate for an upcoming situation, such as approaching or withdrawing from emotional stimuli. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex and salience network are critical for evaluating stimuli, thinking about the future, triggering peripheral physiological responses, and processing and interpreting interoceptive signals. Damage to these circuits in frontotemporal lobar degeneration may impair preparatory responses and help explain often-observed clinical symptoms such as disinhibition in these patients.

Fish oil supplementation alters emotion-generated corticolimbic functional connectivity in depressed adolescents at high-risk for bipolar I disorder: A 12-week placebo-controlled fMRI trial

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the effects of fish oil (FO), a source of the omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), on emotion-generated corticolimbic functional connectivity in depressed youth at high risk for developing bipolar I disorder.

METHODS

Thirty-nine antidepressant-free youth with a current depressive disorder diagnosis and a biological parent with bipolar I disorder were randomized to 12-week double-blind treatment with FO or placebo. At baseline and endpoint, fMRI (4 Tesla) scans were obtained while performing a continuous performance task with emotional and neutral distractors (CPT-END). Seed-to-voxel functional connectivity analyses were performed using bilateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and amygdala (AMY) seeds. Measures of depression, mania, global symptom severity, and erythrocyte fatty acids were obtained.

RESULTS

Erythrocyte EPA+DHA composition increased significantly in the FO group (+47%, p ≤ 0.0001) but not in the placebo group (-10%, p = 0.11). Significant group by time interactions were found for functional connectivity between the left OFC and the left superior temporal gyrus (STG) and between the right AMY and right inferior temporal gyrus (ITG). OFC-STG connectivity increased in the FO group (p = 0.0001) and decreased in the placebo group (p = 0.0019), and AMY-ITG connectivity decreased in the FO group (p = 0.0014) and increased in the placebo group (p < 0.0001). In the FO group, but not placebo group, the decrease in AMY-ITG functional connectivity correlated with decreases in Childhood Depression Rating Scale-Revised and Clinical Global Impression-Severity Scale scores.

CONCLUSIONS

In depressed high-risk youth FO supplementation alters emotion-generated corticolimbic functional connectivity which correlates with changes in symptom severity ratings.

Brain Structure and Optimism Bias: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Approach

Individuals often anticipate an unrealistically favorable future for themselves (personal optimism bias) or others (social optimism bias). While such biases are well established, little is known about their neuroanatomy. In this study, participants engaged in a soccer task and estimated the likelihood of successful passes in personal and social scenarios. Voxel-based morphometry revealed that personal optimism bias varied as a positive function of gray matter volume (GMV) in the putamen, frontal pole, hippocampus, temporal pole, inferior temporal gyrus, visual association areas, and mid-superior temporal gyrus. Social optimism bias correlated positively with GMV in the temporoparietal junction and negatively with GMV in the inferior temporal gyrus and pre-supplementary motor areas. Together, these findings suggest that parts of our optimistic outlook are biologically rooted. Moreover, while the two biases looked similar at the behavioral level, they were related to distinct gray matter structures, proposing that their underlying mechanisms are not identical.

Exploring the Representations of Individual Entities in the Brain Combining EEG and Distributional Semantics

Semantic knowledge about individual entities (i.e., the referents of proper names such as Jacinta Ardern) is fine-grained, episodic, and strongly social in nature, when compared with knowledge about generic entities (the referents of common nouns such as politician). We investigate the semantic representations of individual entities in the brain; and for the first time we approach this question using both neural data, in the form of newly-acquired EEG data, and distributional models of word meaning, employing them to isolate semantic information regarding individual entities in the brain. We ran two sets of analyses. The first set of analyses is only concerned with the evoked responses to individual entities and their categories. We find that it is possible to classify them according to both their coarse and their fine-grained category at appropriate timepoints, but that it is hard to map representational information learned from individuals to their categories. In the second set of analyses, we learn to decode from evoked responses to distributional word vectors. These results indicate that such a mapping can be learnt successfully: this counts not only as a demonstration that representations of individuals can be discriminated in EEG responses, but also as a first brain-based validation of distributional semantic models as representations of individual entities. Finally, in-depth analyses of the decoder performance provide additional evidence that the referents of proper names and categories have little in common when it comes to their representation in the brain.

The Social Cerebellum: A Large-Scale Investigation of Functional and Structural Specificity and Connectivity

The cerebellum has been traditionally disregarded in relation to nonmotor functions, but recent findings indicate it may be involved in language, affective processing, and social functions. Mentalizing, or Theory of Mind (ToM), is the ability to infer mental states of others and this skill relies on a distributed network of brain regions. Here, we leveraged large-scale multimodal neuroimaging data to elucidate the structural and functional role of the cerebellum in mentalizing. We used functional activations to determine whether the cerebellum has a domain-general or domain-specific functional role, and effective connectivity and probabilistic tractography to map the cerebello-cerebral mentalizing network. We found that the cerebellum is organized in a domain-specific way and that there is a left cerebellar effective and structural lateralization, with more and stronger effective connections from the left cerebellar hemisphere to the right cerebral mentalizing areas, and greater cerebello-thalamo-cortical and cortico-ponto-cerebellar streamline counts from and to the left cerebellum. Our study provides novel insights to the network organization of the cerebellum, an overlooked brain structure, and mentalizing, one of humans' most essential abilities to navigate the social world.

Networking of the Human Cerebellum: From Anatomo-Functional Development to Neurosurgical Implications

In the past, the cerebellum was considered to be substantially involved in sensory-motor coordination. However, a growing number of neuroanatomical, neuroimaging, clinical and lesion studies have now provided converging evidence on the implication of the cerebellum in a variety of cognitive, affective, social, and behavioral processes as well. These findings suggest a complex anatomo-functional organization of the cerebellum, involving a dense network of cortical territories and reciprocal connections with many supra-tentorial association areas. The final architecture of cerebellar networks results from a complex, highly protracted, and continuous development from childhood to adulthood, leading to integration between short-distance connections and long-range extra-cerebellar circuits. In this review, we summarize the current evidence on the anatomo-functional organization of the cerebellar connectome. We will focus on the maturation process of afferent and efferent neuronal circuitry, and the involvement of these networks in different aspects of neurocognitive processing. The final section will be devoted to identifying possible implications of this knowledge in neurosurgical practice, especially in the case of posterior fossa tumor resection, and to discuss reliable strategies to improve the quality of approaches while reducing postsurgical morbidity.

Proper names and personal identity

The present chapter reviews the body of knowledge acquired so far about the role of the temporal lobe in representing and processing proper names and individual identity information. This body of knowledge has been collected with the contribution of several methodologies, including neuroimaging, electrophysiological techniques, and, critically, clinical observations. All this evidence converges in showing that proper names and related information are processed in at least partially independent neural networks mainly placed in the anterior areas of the left temporal lobe. A description of the properties distinguishing proper names from common names is provided. These properties, it will be claimed, made a different anatomical organization necessary and, possibly, determined the evolution of the brain to support this advantageous distinction in meeting environmental demands.

Theory of mind and facial emotion recognition in adults with temporal lobe epilepsy: A meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Mounting studies have investigated impairments in social cognitive domains (including theory of mind [ToM] and facial emotion recognition [FER] in adult patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). However, to date, inconsistent findings remain.

METHODS

A search of PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase databases was conducted until December 2021. Hedges g effect sizes were computed with a random-effects model. Meta-regressions were used to assess the potential confounding factors of between-study variability in effect sizes.

RESULTS

The meta-analysis included 41 studies, with a combined sample of 1,749 adult patients with TLE and 1,324 healthy controls (HCs). Relative to HCs, adult patients with TLE showed large impairments in ToM (g = -0.92) and cognitive ToM (g = -0.92), followed by medium impairments in affective ToM (g = -0.79) and FER (g = -0.77). Besides, no (statistically) significant differences were observed between the magnitude of social cognition impairment in adult with TLE who underwent and those who did not undergo epilepsy surgery. Meta-regressions exhibited that greater severity of executive functioning was associated with more severe ToM defects, and older age was associated with more severe FER defects.

CONCLUSIONS

Results of this meta-analysis suggest that adult patients with TLE show differential impairments in the core aspects of social cognitive domains (including ToM and FER), which may help in planning individualized treatment with appropriate cognitive and behavioral interventions.

Theory of Mind and Empathy in Adults With Epilepsy: A Meta-Analysis

Mounting evidence suggests that social cognitive abilities [including theory of mind (ToM) and empathy] are impaired in adult patients with epilepsy. Although the deficits in overall ToM in epilepsy have been documented well, the effects of epilepsy on empathic ability and specific subcomponents of ToM remain unclear. The primary aim of this study was to provide the first meta-analytic integration of ToM and empathy in adult patients with epilepsy, and to decompose these constructs to clearly differentiate their distinct (cognitive ToM and affective empathy) and overlapping (affective ToM/cognitive empathy) components. This meta-analysis included 28 studies. Adult patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and frontal lobe epilepsy (FLE) showed impairments in cognitive ToM and affective ToM/cognitive empathy compared to the healthy controls (HCs); no group differences were identified for affective empathy. Besides, cognitive ToM was impaired in adult patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) and focal seizures (caused by epileptogenic foci) outside the temporal and frontal lobes (extra-TLE/FLE) and no group differences were evident for affective ToM/cognitive empathy compared to the HCs. Moreover, relative to the HCs, no group differences were identified for affective empathy in adult patients with IGE. Additionally, no (statistically) significant difference was observed between the magnitude of ToM/empathy impairment in adult patients who underwent and those who did not undergo epilepsy surgery. These quantitative findings suggest differential impairment of the core aspects of social cognitive processing in adult patients with epilepsy, which may contribute to the development of structured cognitive interventions (i.e., social cognitive training) for adult patients with epilepsy.

Neural substrates of shared visual experiences: a hyperscanning fMRI study

Sharing experience is a fundamental human social cognition. Since visual experience is a mental state directed toward the world, we hypothesized that sharing visual experience is mediated by joint attention (JA) for sharing directedness and mentalizing for mental state inferences. We conducted a hyperscanning functional magnetic resonance imaging with 44 healthy adult volunteers to test this hypothesis. We employed spoken-language-cued spatial and feature-based JA tasks. The initiator attracts the partner's attention by a verbal command to a spatial location or an object feature to which the responder directs their attention. Pair-specific inter-individual neural synchronization of task-specific activities was found in the right anterior insular cortex (AIC)-inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) complex, the core node of JA and salience network, and the right posterior superior temporal sulcus, which represents the shared categories of the target. The right AIC-IFG also showed inter-individual synchronization of the residual time-series data, along with the right temporoparietal junction and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex-the core components for mentalization and the default mode network (DMN). This background synchronization represents sharing the belief of sharing the situation. Thus, shared visual experiences are represented by coherent coordination between the DMN and salience network linked through the right AIC-IFG.

Social and emotion dimensional organizations in the abstract semantic space: the neuropsychological evidence

An essential aspect of human cognition is supported by a rich reservoir of abstract concepts without tangible external referents (e.g., “honor”, “relationship”, “direction”). While decades of research showed that the neural organization of conceptual knowledge referring to concrete words respects domains of evolutionary salience and sensorimotor attributes, the organization principles of abstract word meanings are poorly understood. Here, we provide neuropsychological evidence for a domain (sociality) and attribute (emotion) structure in abstract word processing. Testing 34 brain-damaged patients on a word-semantic judgment task, we observed double dissociations between social and nonsocial words and a single dissociation of sparing of emotional (relative to non-emotional) words. The lesion profiles of patients with specific dissociations suggest potential neural correlates positively or negatively associated with each dimension. These results unravel a general domain-attribute architecture of word meanings and highlight the roles of the social domain and the emotional attribute in the non-object semantic space.

Honorific Speech Impairment: A Characteristic Sign of Frontotemporal Dementia

BACKGROUND

Individuals with the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) exhibit various levels of abulia, disinhibition, impaired judgment, and decline in executive function. Empirical evidence has shown that individuals with bvFTD also often exhibit difficulty using honorific speech, which expresses respect to another party or addressee.

OBJECTIVE

To analyze differences in the ability to use honorific speech among individuals with bvFTD, individuals with dementia of the Alzheimer type (AD dementia), and individuals with normal cognition (NC).

METHOD

A total of 53 native Korean speakers (13 bvFTD, 20 AD dementia, and 20 NC) completed an experimental honorific speech task (HST) that involved both expressive and receptive tasks. We analyzed the number of correct responses and error patterns separately for an expressive task and for a receptive task.

RESULTS

The bvFTD group had significantly fewer correct responses on the HST compared with the AD dementia and NC groups. The bvFTD group exhibited more misjudgment errors in identifying nonhonorific speech as honorific speech in the expressive task, and significantly longer response times in the receptive task, than the AD dementia and NC groups. Significant associations were identified between HST scores and cortical atrophy in the temporal and frontotemporal lobes.

CONCLUSION

A decline in the ability to use honorific speech may be a diagnosable behavioral and psychiatric symptom for bvFTD in Korean-speaking individuals. This decline in individuals with bvFTD could be attributed to multiple factors, including social manners (politeness) and impaired social language use ability (pragmatics).

Learning positive social information reduces racial bias as indexed by N400 response

The present study used EEG/ERPs to detect the activation of implicit stereotypical representations associated to other-race (OR) people and the modulation of such activation through the previous presentation of positive vs. neutral social information. Electrophysiological signals were recorded in 40 Italian Caucasian participants, unaware of the overall study's purpose. They were presented with 285 sentences that could either violate, non-violate (e.g., "the Roma girl was involved in a robbery) or be neutral with regard to stereotypical concepts concerning other-race people (e.g. Asians, Africans, Arabic). ERPs were time-locked to the terminal words. Prior to the sentence reading task, participants were exposed to a 10 minutes colourful video documentary. While the experimental group was presented a video containing images picturing other-race characters involved in "prestigious" activities that violated stereotypical negative assumptions (e.g. a black neurosurgeon leading a surgery team), the control group viewed a neutral documentary about flora and fauna. EEG signals were then recorded during the sentence reading task to explore whether the previous exposure to the experimental video could modulate the detection of incongruence in the sentences violating stereotypes, as marked by the N400 response. A fictitious task was adopted, consisted in detecting rare animal names. Indeed, only the control group showed a greater N400 response (350-550 ms) to words incongruent with ethnic stereotypes compared to congruent and neutral ones, thus suggesting the presence of a racial bias. No N400 response was found for the experimental group, suggesting a lack of negative expectation for OR individuals. The swLORETA inverse solution, performed on the prejudice-related N400 showed that the Inferior Temporal and the Superior and Middle Frontal Gyri were the strongest N400 intra-cortical sources. Regardless of the experimental manipulation, Congruent terminal words evoked a greater P300 response (500-600 ms) compared to incongruent and neutral ones and a late frontal positivity (650-800 ms) was found to be larger to sentences involving OR than own-race characters (either congruent or incongruent with the prejudice) thus possibly indicating bias-free perceptual in-group/out-group categorization processes. The data showed how it is possible to modulate a pre-existing racial prejudice (as reflected by N400 effect) through exposure to positive media-driven information about OR people. Further follow-up studies should determine the duration in time, and across contexts, of this modulatory effect.

Establishing a role of the semantic control network in social cognitive processing: A meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies

The contribution and neural basis of cognitive control is under-specified in many prominent models of socio-cognitive processing. Important outstanding questions include whether there are multiple, distinguishable systems underpinning control and whether control is ubiquitously or selectively engaged across different social behaviours and task demands. Recently, it has been proposed that the regulation of social behaviours could rely on brain regions specialised in the controlled retrieval of semantic information, namely the anterior inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus. Accordingly, we investigated for the first time whether the neural activation commonly found in social functional neuroimaging studies extends to these 'semantic control' regions. We conducted five coordinate-based meta-analyses to combine results of 499 fMRI/PET experiments and identified the brain regions consistently involved in semantic control, as well as four social abilities: theory of mind, trait inference, empathy and moral reasoning. This allowed an unprecedented parallel review of the neural networks associated with each of these cognitive domains. The results confirmed that the anterior left IFG region involved in semantic control is reliably engaged in all four social domains. This supports the hypothesis that social cognition is partly regulated by the neurocognitive system underpinning semantic control.

Orientational changes of white matter fibers in Alzheimer's disease and amnestic mild cognitive impairment

White matter abnormalities represent early neuropathological events in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), investigating these white matter alterations would likely provide valuable insights into pathological changes over the course of AD. Using a novel mathematical framework called "Director Field Analysis" (DFA), we investigated the geometric microstructural properties (i.e., splay, bend, twist, and total distortion) in the orientation of white matter fibers in AD, amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), and cognitively normal (CN) individuals from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative 2 database. Results revealed that AD patients had extensive orientational changes in the bilateral anterior thalamic radiation, corticospinal tract, inferior and superior longitudinal fasciculus, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, and uncinate fasciculus in comparison with CN. We postulate that these orientational changes of white matter fibers may be partially caused by the expansion of lateral ventricle, white matter atrophy, and gray matter atrophy in AD. In contrast, aMCI individuals showed subtle orientational changes in the left inferior longitudinal fasciculus and right uncinate fasciculus, which showed a significant association with the cognitive performance, suggesting that these regions may be preferential vulnerable to breakdown by neurodegenerative brain disorders, thereby resulting in the patients' cognitive impairment. To our knowledge, this article is the first to examine geometric microstructural changes in the orientation of white matter fibers in AD and aMCI. Our findings demonstrate that the orientational information of white matter fibers could provide novel insight into the underlying biological and pathological changes in AD and aMCI.

Emotion recognition and theory of mind after temporal lobe epilepsy surgery: A systematic review

In order to navigate in our complex social world successfully, it is crucial to maintain and practice cognitive skills that are dedicated to adaptive social functioning. Emerging evidence suggests that besides deficits in declarative memory, executive functions, and language, impairments in social cognition (SC, e.g., emotion recognition, theory of mind) are also present in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). The organic and psycho-social consequences of epilepsy surgery might have additional implications regarding this deficit. Here we qualitatively synthesize longitudinal and cross-sectional findings on SC after TLE surgery. A literature search using PubMed and Scopus identified 275 potential articles. Studies were eligible if they (1) included patients with a diagnosis of TLE, (2) included a healthy comparison group, (3) reported original research, (4) were published in peer-reviewed journals and in English language, (5) reported the intervention of epilepsy surgery. Articles that (1) were case studies, (2) did not focus on SC abilities, (3) used interviews or self-report questionnaires to examine SC functions were excluded. A total of 16 original studies assessing emotion recognition (ER) and/or theory of mind (ToM) matched our criteria. The literature suggests that neither ER nor ToM abilities change after surgery: post-surgery patients show similar impairment patterns to pre-surgery patients. Nevertheless, individual improvement or decline could be masked by group comparisons and results should be considered in light of methodological heterogeneity among studies.

Electroencephalographic and morphometric abnormalities in psychopath offenders

The main goals of the present study were to replicate and extend current knowledge related to paralimbic dysfunctions associated with psychopathy. The research evaluated the quantitative electroencephalography, current density (CD) source and synchronization likelihood analysis during the rest condition and structural magnetic resonance imaging images to compare volumetric and cortical thickness, in inmates recruited from two prisons located in Havana City. The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) was used as a quantitative measure of psychopathy. This study showed most beta energy and less alpha activity in male psychopath offenders. Low-resolution electromagnetic tomography signified an increase of beta activity in psychopath offender groups within paralimbic regions. The superior temporal gyrus volume was associated with the F1 factor while the fusiform, anterior cingulate and associative occipital areas were primarily associated with the F2 factor of PCL-R scale. Cortical thickness in the left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the temporal pole was negatively associated with PCL-R total score.

Effects of Aging on the Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Recollection of Memories Encoded by Social Interactions With Persons in the Same and Different Age Groups

Memories related to ingroup members are remembered more accurately than those related to outgroup members. However, little is known about the age-dependent differences in neural mechanisms underlying the retrieval of memories shared with ingroup or outgroup members that are categorized by age-group membership. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated this issue. Healthy young and older adults participated in a 2-day experiment. On the first day outside fMRI, participants were presented with words by unfamiliar persons in movie clips and exchanged each word with persons belonging to the same age group (SAG) or different age group (DAG). On the second day during fMRI, participants were randomly presented with learned and new words one by one, and they judged whether each word had been encoded with either SAG or DAG members or neither. fMRI results demonstrated that an age-dependent decrease in successful retrieval activation of memories presented by DAG was identified in the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) and hippocampus, whereas with memories presented by SAG, an age-dependent decrease in activation was not found in any regions. In addition, an age-dependent decrease in functional connectivity was significant between the hippocampus/ATL and posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) during the successful retrieval of memories encoded with the DAG people. The “other”-related mechanisms including the hippocampus, ATL, and pSTS with memories learned with the outgroup members could decrease in older adults, whereas with memories learned with the ingroup members, the “self”-related mechanisms could be relatively preserved in older adults.

Degree Centrality of a Brain Network Is Altered by Stereotype Threat: Evidences From a Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Previous studies have found the effects of stereotype threat (ST) on cognitive processes, emotions, and motivations which could account for the underperformance in domain tasks. Efficient brain function does not require the function of different brain regions during specific tasks, but it does require the brain networks on which information is transported. Based on these, the effects of ST on the degree centrality under the resting state of brain regions related to these processes were investigated under math-related ST. The results showed that RSDC was decreased in the left hippocampus and left middle occipital gyrus (MOC), while RSDC was increased in the left precuneus, the right angular gyrus (AG), and the right superior parietal gyrus (SPG) under ST. Interestingly, we also found that the right-left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) and the right hippocampus were negatively correlated with manipulation check (MC) score in the ST group, while the right-left ATL and the right hippocampus were positively correlated with MC score in the control group. These results might reflect those individuals who attempted to inhibit the negative emotions induced by the negative stereotypes under ST conditions while increasing the self-relevant processes by retrieving episodic memory or autobiographical memory.

Neural mechanisms of predicting individual preferences based on group membership

Successful social interaction requires humans to predict others’ behavior. To do so, internal models of others are generated based on previous observations. When predicting others’ preferences for objects, for example, observations are made at an individual level (5-year-old Rosie often chooses a pencil) or at a group level (kids often choose pencils). But previous research has focused either on already established group knowledge, i.e. stereotypes, or on the neural correlates of predicting traits and preferences of individuals. We identified the neural mechanisms underlying predicting individual behavior based on learned group knowledge using fMRI. We show that applying learned group knowledge hinges on both a network of regions commonly referred to as the mentalizing network, and a network of regions implicated in representing social knowledge. Additionally, we provide evidence for the presence of a gradient in the posterior temporal cortex and the medial frontal cortex, catering to different functions while applying learned group knowledge. This process is characterized by an increased connectivity between medial prefrontal cortex and other mentalizing network regions and increased connectivity between anterior temporal lobe and other social knowledge regions. Our study provides insights into the neural mechanisms underlying the application of learned group knowledge.

Neonatal White Matter Microstructure and Emotional Development during the Preschool Years in Children Who Were Born Very Preterm

Children born very preterm (<33 weeks of gestation) are at a higher risk of developing socio-emotional difficulties compared with those born at term. In this longitudinal study, we tested the hypothesis that diffusion characteristics of white matter (WM) tracts implicated in socio-emotional processing assessed in the neonatal period are associated with socio-emotional development in 151 very preterm children previously enrolled into the Evaluation of Preterm Imaging study (EudraCT 2009-011602-42). All children underwent diffusion tensor imaging at term-equivalent age and fractional anisotropy (FA) was quantified in the uncinate fasciculus (UF), inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), and superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF). Children's socio-emotional development was evaluated at preschool age (median = 4.63 years). Exploratory factor analysis conducted on the outcome variables revealed a three-factor structure, with latent constructs summarized as: "emotion moderation," "social function," and "empathy." Results of linear regression analyses, adjusting for full-scale IQ and clinical and socio-demographic variables, showed an association between lower FA in the right UF and higher "emotion moderation" scores (β = -0.280; p < 0.001), which was mainly driven by negative affectivity scores (β = -0.281; p = 0.001). Results further showed an association between higher full-scale IQ and better social functioning (β = -0.334, p < 0.001). Girls had higher empathy scores than boys (β = -0.341, p = 0.006). These findings suggest that early alterations of diffusion characteristics of the UF could represent a biological substrate underlying the link between very preterm birth and emotional dysregulation in childhood and beyond.

Emotion-Related Network Reorganization Following Fish Oil Supplementation in Depressed Bipolar Offspring: An fMRI Graph-Based Connectome Analysis

INTRODUCTION

Mood disorders are associated with fronto-limbic structural and functional abnormalities and deficits in omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids including eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Emerging evidence also suggests that n-3 PUFA, which are enriched in fish oil, promote cortical plasticity and connectivity. The present study performed a graph-based connectome analysis to investigate the role of n-3 PUFA in emotion-related network organization in medication-free depressed adolescent bipolar offspring.

METHODS

At baseline patients (n = 53) were compared with healthy controls (n = 53), and patients were then randomized to 12-week double-blind treatment with placebo or fish oil. At baseline and endpoint, erythrocyte EPA+DHA levels were measured and fMRI scans (4 Tesla) were obtained while performing a continuous performance task with emotional and neutral distractors (CPT-END). Graph-based analysis was used to characterize topological properties of large-scale brain network organization.

RESULTS

Compared with healthy controls, patients exhibited lower erythrocyte EPA+DHA levels (p = 0.0001), lower network clustering coefficients (p = 0.029), global efficiency (p = 0.042), and lower node centrality and connectivity strengths in frontal-limbic regions (p<0.05). Compared with placebo, 12-week fish oil supplementation increased erythrocyte EPA+DHA levels (p<0.001), network clustering coefficient (p = 0.005), global (p = 0.047) and local (p = 0.023) efficiency, and node centralities mainly in temporal regions (p<0.05).

LIMITATIONS

The duration of fish oil supplementation was relatively short and the sample size was relatively small.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings provide preliminary evidence that abnormalities in emotion-related network organization observed in depressed high-risk youth may be amenable to modification through fish oil supplementation.

Reinstatement of Event Details during Episodic Simulation in the Hippocampus

According to the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis, episodic simulation (i.e., imagining specific novel future episodes) draws on some of the same neurocognitive processes that support episodic memory (i.e., recalling specific past episodes). Episodic retrieval supports the ability to simulate future experiences by providing access to episodic details (e.g., the people and locations that comprise memories) that can be recombined in new ways. In the current functional neuroimaging study, we test this hypothesis by examining whether the hippocampus, a region implicated in the reinstatement of episodic information during memory, supports reinstatement of episodic information during simulation. Employing a multivoxel pattern similarity analysis, we interrogated the similarity between hippocampal neural patterns during memory and simulation at the level of individual event details. Our findings indicate that the hippocampus supports the reinstatement of detail-specific information from episodic memory during simulation, with the level of reinstatement contributing to the subjective experience of simulated details.

Learning Faces as Concepts Improves Face Recognition by Engaging the Social Brain Network

Face recognition benefits from associating social information to faces during learning. This has been demonstrated by better recognition for faces that underwent social than perceptual evaluations. Two hypotheses were proposed to account for this effect. According to the feature-elaboration hypothesis, social-evaluations encourage elaborated processing of perceptual information from faces (Winograd, 1981). According to a social-representation hypothesis, social-evaluations convert faces from a perceptual representation to a socially meaningful representation of a person. To decide between these two hypotheses, we ran a functional MRI study in which we functionally localized the posterior face-selective brain areas and social processing brain areas. Participants watched video-clips of young adults and were asked to study them for a recognition test, while making either perceptual evaluations or social evaluations about them. During the fMRI scan, participants performed an old/new recognition test. Behavioural findings replicated better recognition for faces that underwent social then perceptual evaluations. fMRI results showed higher response during the recognition phase for the faces that were learned socially than perceptually, in the social-brain network but not in posterior face-selective network. These results support the social-representation hypothesis and highlight the important role that social processing mechanisms, rather than purely perceptual processes, play in face recognition.

Social Cognition in Patients with Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild Dementia of the Alzheimer Type

BACKGROUND

Social cognition (SC) is a core criterion for neurocognitive disorders. However, findings in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) are inconsistent.

OBJECTIVE

We report assessments of emotion recognition (ER), affective and cognitive theory of mind (ToM) in young (YC) and older controls (OC) compared to aMCI and DAT.

METHODS

28 aMCI, 30 DAT, 30 YC, and 29 OC received tests of SC and a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment. Analysis of covariance was used to determine group differences. Multiple regression models were applied to identify predictors for each SC task.

RESULTS

In controls, OC performed worse in ER and both ToM tasks compared to YC except for one subtest. No significant differences were found between OC and patients concerning ER and affective ToM. In cognitive ToM, differences between OC and patients depended on content and cognitive load with significant impairment in DAT compared to OC. A cognitive composite score predicted SC in OC, but not in patients. Associations of SC with single cognitive domains were found in all groups with language and complex attention as best predictors. Not all variance of SC performance was explained by variance in cognitive domains.

CONCLUSION

Lower performance on SC tasks in OC versus YC was confirmed, although not all tasks were equally affected. With progressive cognitive impairment, cognitive ToM is more impaired than ER or affective ToM. SC seems to be at least partly independent of other cognitive domains, justifying its inclusion in batteries for dementia diagnostic.

The interplay of emotional and social conceptual processes during moral reasoning in frontotemporal dementia

Cooperative social behaviour in humans hinges upon our unique ability to make appropriate moral decisions in accordance with our ethical values. The complexity of the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying moral reasoning is revealed when this capacity breaks down. Patients with the behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) display striking moral transgressions in the context of atrophy to frontotemporal regions supporting affective and social conceptual processing. Developmental studies have highlighted the importance of social knowledge to moral decision making in children, yet the role of social knowledge in relation to moral reasoning impairments in neurodegeneration has largely been overlooked. Here, we sought to examine the role of affective and social conceptual processes in personal moral reasoning in bvFTD, and their relationship to the integrity and structural connectivity of frontotemporal brain regions. Personal moral reasoning across varying degrees of conflict was assessed in 26 bvFTD patients and compared with demographically matched Alzheimer's disease patients (n = 14), and healthy older adults (n = 22). Following each moral decision, we directly probed participants' subjective emotional experience as an index of their affective response, while social norm knowledge was assessed via an independent task. While groups did not differ significantly in terms of their moral decisions, bvFTD patients reported feeling 'better' about their decisions than healthy control subjects. In other words, although bvFTD patients could adjudicate between different courses of action in the moral scenarios, their affective responses to these decisions were highly irregular. This blunted emotional reaction was exclusive to the personal high-conflict condition, with 61.5% of bvFTD patients reporting feeling 'extremely good' about their decisions, and was correlated with reduced knowledge of socially acceptable behaviour. Voxel-based morphometry analyses revealed a distributed network of frontal, subcortical, and lateral temporal grey matter regions involved in the attenuated affective response to moral conflict in bvFTD. Crucially, diffusion-tensor imaging implicated the uncinate fasciculus as the pathway by which social conceptual knowledge may influence emotional reactions to personal high-conflict moral dilemmas in bvFTD. Our findings suggest that altered moral behaviour in bvFTD reflects the dynamic interplay between degraded social conceptual knowledge and blunted affective responsiveness, attributable to atrophy of, and impaired information transfer between, frontal and temporal cortices. Delineating the mechanisms of impaired morality in bvFTD provides crucial clinical information for understanding and treating this challenging symptom, which may help pave the way for targeted behavioural interventions.

A large-scale structural and functional connectome of social mentalizing

Humans have a remarkable ability to infer the mind of others. This mentalizing skill relies on a distributed network of brain regions but how these regions connect and interact is not well understood. Here we leveraged large-scale multimodal neuroimaging data to elucidate the brain-wide organization and mechanisms of mentalizing processing. Key connectomic features of the mentalizing network (MTN) have been delineated in exquisite detail. We found the structural architecture of MTN is organized by two parallel subsystems and constructed redundantly by local and long-range white matter fibers. We uncovered an intrinsic functional architecture that is synchronized according to the degree of mentalizing, and its hierarchy reflects the inherent information integration order. We also examined the correspondence between the structural and functional connectivity in the network and revealed their differences in network topology, individual variance, spatial specificity, and functional specificity. Finally, we scrutinized the connectome resemblance between the default mode network and MTN and elaborated their inherent differences in dynamic patterns, laterality, and homogeneity. Overall, our study demonstrates that mentalizing processing unfolds across functionally heterogeneous regions with highly structured fiber tracts and unique hierarchical functional architecture, which make it distinguishable from the default mode network and other vicinity brain networks supporting autobiographical memory, semantic memory, self-referential, moral reasoning, and mental time travel.

Punishment on Pause: Preliminary Evidence That Mindfulness Training Modifies Neural Responses in a Reactive Aggression Task

Reactive aggression, a hostile retaliatory response to perceived threat, has been attributed to failures in emotion regulation. Interventions for reactive aggression have largely focused on cognitive control training, which target top-down emotion regulation mechanisms to inhibit aggressive impulses. Recent theory suggests that mindfulness training (MT) improves emotion regulation via both top-down and bottom-up neural mechanisms and has thus been proposed as an alternative treatment for aggression. Using this framework, the current pilot study examined how MT impacts functional brain physiology in the regulation of reactive aggression. Participants were randomly assigned to 2 weeks of MT (n = 11) or structurally equivalent active coping training (CT) that emphasizes cognitive control (n = 12). Following training, participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a retaliatory aggression task, a 16-trial game in which participants could respond to provocation by choosing whether or not to retaliate in the next round. Training groups did not differ in levels of aggression displayed. However, participants assigned to MT exhibited enhanced ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) recruitment during punishment events (i.e., the aversive consequence of losing) relative to those receiving active CT. Conversely, the active coping group demonstrated greater dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) activation when deciding how much to retaliate, in line with a bolstered top-down behavior monitoring function. The findings suggest that mindfulness and cognitive control training may regulate aggression via different neural circuits and at different temporal stages of the provocation-aggression cycle. Trial Registration: identification no. NCT03485807.

Resting functional connectivity in the semantic appraisal network predicts accuracy of emotion identification

OBJECTIVE

Structural and task-based functional studies associate emotion reading with frontotemporal brain networks, though it remains unclear whether functional connectivity (FC) alone predicts emotion reading ability. The predominantly frontotemporal salience and semantic appraisal (SAN) networks are selectively impacted in neurodegenerative disease syndromes like behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and semantic-variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA). Accurate emotion identification diminishes in some of these patients, but studies investigating the source of this symptom in patients have predominantly examined structural rather than functional brain changes. Thus, we investigated the impact of altered connectivity on their emotion reading.

METHODS

One-hundred-eighty-five participants (26 bvFTD, 21 svPPA, 24 non-fluent variant PPA, 24 progressive supranuclear palsy, 49 Alzheimer's disease, 41 neurologically healthy older controls) underwent task-free fMRI, and completed the Emotion Evaluation subtest of The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT-EET), watching videos and selecting labels for actors' emotions.

RESULTS

As expected, patients averaged significantly worse on emotion reading, but with wide inter-individual variability. Across all groups, lower mean FC in the SAN, but not other ICNs, predicted worse TASIT-EET performance. Node-pair analysis revealed that emotion identification was predicted by FC between 1) right anterior temporal lobe (RaTL) and right anterior orbitofrontal (OFC), 2) RaTL and right posterior OFC, and 3) left basolateral amygdala and left posterior OFC.

CONCLUSION

Emotion reading test performance predicts FC in specific SAN regions mediating socioemotional semantics, personalized evaluations, and salience-driven attention, highlighting the value of emotion testing in clinical and research settings to index neural circuit dysfunction in patients with neurodegeneration and other neurologic disorders.

Neurocognitive Measures of Self-blame and Risk Prediction Models of Recurrence in Major Depressive Disorder

BACKGROUND

Overgeneralized self-blaming emotions, such as self-disgust, are core symptoms of major depressive disorder and prompt specific actions (i.e., action tendencies), which are more functionally relevant than the emotions themselves. We have recently shown, using a novel cognitive task, that when feeling self-blaming emotions, maladaptive action tendencies (feeling like hiding and feeling like creating a distance from oneself) and an overgeneralized perception of control are characteristic of major depressive disorder, even after remission of symptoms. Here, we probed the potential of this cognitive signature, and its combination with previously employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measures, to predict individual recurrence risk. For this purpose, we developed a user-friendly hybrid machine/statistical learning tool, which we make freely available.

METHODS

A total of 52 medication-free patients with remitted major depressive disorder, who had completed the action tendencies task and our self-blame fMRI task at baseline, were followed up clinically over 14 months to determine recurrence. Prospective prediction models included baseline maladaptive self-blame-related action tendencies and anterior temporal fMRI connectivity patterns across a set of frontolimbic a priori regions of interest, as well as including established clinical and standard psychological predictors. Prediction models used elastic net regularized logistic regression with nested 10-fold cross-validation.

RESULTS

Cross-validated discrimination was highly promising (area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve ≥ 0.86), and positive predictive values over 80% were achieved when including fMRI in multimodal models, but only up to 71% (area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve ≤ 0.74) when solely relying on cognitive and clinical measures.

CONCLUSIONS

This study shows the high potential of multimodal signatures of self-blaming biases to predict recurrence risk at an individual level and calls for external validation in an independent sample.

Functional Connectome Fingerprint of Holistic-Analytic Cultural Style

Although research in the field of cultural psychology and cultural neuroscience has revealed that culture is an important factor related to the human behaviors and neural activities in various tasks, it remains unclear how different brain regions organize together to construct a topological network for the representation of individual's cultural tendency. In this study, we examined the hypothesis that resting-state brain network properties can reflect individual's cultural background or tendency. By combining the methods of resting state MRI and graph theoretical analysis, significant cultural differences between participants from Eastern and Western cultures were found in the degree and global efficiency of regions mainly within the default mode network and subcortical network. Furthermore, the holistic/analytic thinking style, as a cultural value, provided a partial explanation for the cultural differences on various nodal metrics. Validation analyses further confirmed that these network properties effectively predicted the tendency of holistic/analytic cultural style within a group (r = 0.23), and accurately classified cultural groups (65%). The current study establishes a neural connectome representation of holistic/analytic cultural style including the topological brain network properties of regions in the default mode network, the basal ganglia and amygdala, which enable accurate cultural group membership classification.

Functional Connectivity Alterations of the Temporal Lobe and Hippocampus in Semantic Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease

BACKGROUND

Semantic memory impairments in semantic dementia are attributed to atrophy and functional disruption of the anterior temporal lobes. In contrast, the posterior medial temporal neurodegeneration found in Alzheimer's disease is associated with episodic memory disturbance. The two dementia subtypes share hippocampal deterioration, despite a relatively spared episodic memory in semantic dementia.

OBJECTIVE

To unravel mutual and divergent functional alterations in Alzheimer's disease and semantic dementia, we assessed functional connectivity between temporal lobe regions in Alzheimer's disease (n = 16), semantic dementia (n = 23), and healthy controls (n = 17).

METHODS

In an exploratory study, we used a functional parcellation of the temporal cortex to extract time series from 66 regions for correlation analysis.

RESULTS

Apart from differing connections between Alzheimer's disease and semantic dementia that yielded reduced functional connectivity, we identified a common pathway between the right anterior temporal lobe and the right orbitofrontal cortex in both dementia subtypes. This disconnectivity might be related to social knowledge deficits as part of semantic memory decline. However, such interpretations are preferably made in a holistic context of disease-specific semantic impairments and functional connectivity changes.

CONCLUSION

Despite a major limitation owed to unbalanced databases between study groups, this study provides a preliminary picture of the brain's functional disconnectivity in Alzheimer's disease and semantic dementia. Future studies are needed to replicate findings of a common pathway with consistent diagnostic criteria and neuropsychological evaluation, balanced designs, and matched data MRI acquisition procedures.

Different types of abstract concepts: evidence from two neurodegenerative patients

The observation of neurological patients showing selective impairments for specific conceptual categories contributed in the development of semantic memory theories. Here, we studied two patients (P01, P02), affected, respectively, by the semantic variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia (sv-PPA) and Cortico-Basal Syndrome (CBS). An implicit lexical decision task, including concrete (animals, tools) and abstract (emotions, social, quantity) concepts, was administered to patients and healthy controls.P01 and P02 showed an abolished priming effect for social and quantity-related concepts, respectively. This double dissociation suggests a role of different brain areas in representing specific abstract categories, giving insights for current semantic memory theories.

Intrinsic connectivity reveals functionally distinct cortico-hippocampal networks in the human brain

Episodic memory depends on interactions between the hippocampus and interconnected neocortical regions. Here, using data-driven analyses of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, we identified the networks that interact with the hippocampus-the default mode network (DMN) and a "medial temporal network" (MTN) that included regions in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) and precuneus. We observed that the MTN plays a critical role in connecting the visual network to the DMN and hippocampus. The DMN could be further divided into 3 subnetworks: a "posterior medial" (PM) subnetwork comprised of posterior cingulate and lateral parietal cortices; an "anterior temporal" (AT) subnetwork comprised of regions in the temporopolar and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex; and a "medial prefrontal" (MP) subnetwork comprised of regions primarily in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). These networks vary in their functional connectivity (FC) along the hippocampal long axis and represent different kinds of information during memory-guided decision-making. Finally, a Neurosynth meta-analysis of fMRI studies suggests new hypotheses regarding the functions of the MTN and DMN subnetworks, providing a framework to guide future research on the neural architecture of episodic memory.

The multidimensionality of abstract concepts: A systematic review

The neuroscientific study of conceptual representation has largely focused on categories of concrete entities (biological entities, tools…), while abstract knowledge has been less extensively investigated. The possible presence of a categorical organization of abstract knowledge is a debated issue. An embodied cognition framework predicts an organization of the abstract domain into different dimensions, grounded in the brain regions engaged by the corresponding experience. Here we review the types of experience that have been proposed to characterize different categories of abstract concepts, and the evidence supporting a corresponding organization derived from behavioural, neuroimaging (i.e., fMRI, MRI, PET, SPECT), EEG, and neurostimulation (i.e., TMS) studies in healthy and clinical populations. The available data provide substantial converging evidence in favour of the presence of distinct neural representations of social and emotional knowledge, mental states and magnitude concepts, engaging brain systems involved in the corresponding experiences. This evidence is supporting an extension of embodied models of semantic memory organization to several types of abstract knowledge.

Synchronous caregiving from birth to adulthood tunes humans' social brain

A birth-to-adulthood study tested the effects of maternal–newborn contact and synchronous caregiving on the social processing brain in human adults. For two decades, we followed preterm and full-term neonates, who received or lacked initial maternal bodily contact, repeatedly observing mother–child social synchrony. We measured the brain basis of affect-specific empathy in young adulthood to pinpoint regions sensitive to others’ distinct emotions. Maternal–newborn contact enhanced social synchrony across development, which, in turn, predicted amygdalar and insular sensitivity to emotion-specific empathy. Findings demonstrate the long-term effects of maternal caregiving in humans, similar to their role in other mammals, particularly in tuning core regions implicated in salience detection, simulation, and interoception that sustain empathy and human attachment.

Mammalian young are born with immature brain and rely on the mother’s body and caregiving behavior for maturation of neurobiological systems that sustain adult sociality. While research in animal models indicated the long-term effects of maternal contact and caregiving on the adult brain, little is known about the effects of maternal–newborn contact and parenting behavior on social brain functioning in human adults. We followed human neonates, including premature infants who initially lacked or received maternal–newborn skin-to-skin contact and full-term controls, from birth to adulthood, repeatedly observing mother–child social synchrony at key developmental nodes. We tested the brain basis of affect-specific empathy in young adulthood and utilized multivariate techniques to distinguish brain regions sensitive to others’ distinct emotions from those globally activated by the empathy task. The amygdala, insula, temporal pole (TP), and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) showed high sensitivity to others’ distinct emotions. Provision of maternal–newborn contact enhanced social synchrony across development from infancy and up until adulthood. The experience of synchrony, in turn, predicted the brain’s sensitivity to emotion-specific empathy in the amygdala and insula, core structures of the social brain. Social synchrony linked with greater empathic understanding in adolescence, which was longitudinally associated with higher neural sensitivity to emotion-specific empathy in TP and VMPFC. Findings demonstrate the centrality of synchronous caregiving, by which infants practice the detection and sharing of others’ affective states, for tuning the human social brain, particularly in regions implicated in salience detection, interoception, and mentalization that underpin affect sharing and human attachment.

fMRI response to automatic and purposeful familiar-face processing in perceptual and nonperceptual cortical regions

Viewing the faces of familiar people selectively activates a distributed network of brain regions implicated in both the perceptual and nonperceptual processing of conspecifics. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we investigate the influence of depth of famous-face processing on this network, comparing a passive incidental face processing to a task that required the extraction of identity and biographic information. We observed that the precuneus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), anterior temporal face patch (ATFP), and the amygdala exhibit a selective response even during incidental face processing. At the same time, face selectivity was enhanced in the lateral anterior temporal lobe (latATL) and the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) when identity and information extraction was required. In addition, goal-directed identity and information extraction was associated with a recruitment of inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), whereas this region was deactivated during passive viewing. Collectively, these results show that: 1) in addition to active information extraction, the extended system is recruited by the passive retrieval of person-related knowledge and 2) active access to such knowledge modulates activity in latATL and pSTS, potentially mediated via control circuits in the IFG.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Information is extracted from familiar faces in both automatic and active modes. Using functional MRI, we show: 1) that automatic access results in the selective activation of nonperceptual brain regions, the precuneus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and the anterior face patch and amygdala, demonstrating the automaticity of access to information in these regions; 2) selective increases in the activation of the lateral anterior temporal lobe and posterior superior temporal gyrus when biographic information is actively extracted.

Semantic Knowledge of Famous People and Places Is Represented in Hippocampus and Distinct Cortical Networks

Studies have found that anterior temporal lobe (ATL) is critical for detailed knowledge of object categories, suggesting that it has an important role in semantic memory. However, in addition to information about entities, such as people and objects, semantic memory also encompasses information about places. We tested predictions stemming from the PMAT model, which proposes there are distinct systems that support different kinds of semantic knowledge: an anterior temporal (AT) network, which represents information about entities; and a posterior medial (PM) network, which represents information about places. We used representational similarity analysis to test for activation of semantic features when human participants viewed pictures of famous people and places, while controlling for visual similarity. We used machine learning techniques to quantify the semantic similarity of items based on encyclopedic knowledge in the Wikipedia page for each item and found that these similarity models accurately predict human similarity judgments. We found that regions within the AT network, including ATL and inferior frontal gyrus, represented detailed semantic knowledge of people. In contrast, semantic knowledge of places was represented within PM network areas, including precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, angular gyrus, and parahippocampal cortex. Finally, we found that hippocampus, which has been proposed to serve as an interface between the AT and PM networks, represented fine-grained semantic similarity for both individual people and places. Our results provide evidence that semantic knowledge of people and places is represented separately in AT and PM areas, whereas hippocampus represents semantic knowledge of both categories.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Humans acquire detailed semantic knowledge about people (e.g., their occupation and personality) and places (e.g., their cultural or historical significance). While research has demonstrated that brain regions preferentially respond to pictures of people and places, less is known about whether these regions preferentially represent semantic knowledge about specific people and places. We used machine learning techniques to develop a model of semantic similarity based on information available from Wikipedia, validating the model against similarity ratings from human participants. Using our computational model, we found that semantic knowledge about people and places is represented in distinct anterior temporal and posterior medial brain networks, respectively. We further found that hippocampus, an important memory center, represented semantic knowledge for both types of stimuli.

Age and intranasal oxytocin effects on trust-related decisions after breach of trust: Behavioral and brain evidence

Age-related differences in cognition and socioemotional functions, and in associated brain regions, may reduce sensitivity to cues of untrustworthiness, with effects on trust-related decision making and trusting behavior. This study examined age-group differences in brain activity and behavior during a trust game. In this game, participants received "breach-of-trust" feedback after half of the trials. The feedback indicated that only 50% of the monetary investment into their fellow players had resulted in returns. The study also explored the effects of intranasal oxytocin on trust-related decisions in aging, based on suggestions of a modulatory role of oxytocin in response to negative social stimuli and perceptions of trust. Forty-seven younger and 46 older participants self-administered intranasal oxytocin or placebo, in a randomized, double-blind, between-subjects procedure, before they engaged in the trust game while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Younger participants invested less into their game partners after breach-of-trust feedback, while older participants showed no significant difference in their investment after breach-of-trust feedback. Oxytocin did not modulate the behavioral effects. However, after breach-of-trust feedback, older participants in the oxytocin group showed less activity in the left superior temporal gyrus. In contrast, older participants in the placebo group showed more activity in left superior temporal gyrus after breach of trust. The findings may reflect reduced responsiveness to cues of untrustworthiness in older adults. Furthermore, the modulatory effect of oxytocin on left superior temporal gyrus activity among older adults supports the neuropeptide's age-differential role in neural processes in aging, including in the context of trust-related decision making. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

When affect overlaps with concept: emotion recognition in semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia

The most recent theories of emotions have postulated that their expression and recognition depend on acquired conceptual knowledge. In other words, the conceptual knowledge derived from prior experiences guide our ability to make sense of such emotions. However, clear evidence is still lacking to contradict more traditional theories, considering emotions as innate, distinct and universal physiological states. In addition, whether valence processing (i.e. recognition of the pleasant/unpleasant character of emotions) also relies on semantic knowledge is yet to be determined. To investigate the contribution of semantic knowledge to facial emotion recognition and valence processing, we conducted a behavioural and neuroimaging study in 20 controls and 16 patients with the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia, a neurodegenerative disease that is prototypical of semantic memory impairment, and in which an emotion recognition deficit has already been described. We assessed participants’ knowledge of emotion concepts and recognition of 10 basic (e.g. anger) or self-conscious (e.g. embarrassment) facial emotional expressions presented both statically (images) and dynamically (videos). All participants also underwent a brain MRI. Group comparisons revealed deficits in both emotion concept knowledge and emotion recognition in patients, independently of type of emotion and presentation. These measures were significantly correlated with each other in patients and with semantic fluency in patients and controls. Neuroimaging analyses showed that both emotion recognition and emotion conceptual knowledge were correlated with reduced grey matter density in similar areas within frontal ventral, temporal, insular and striatal regions, together with white fibre degeneration in tracts connecting frontal regions with each other as well as with temporal regions. We then performed a qualitative analysis of responses made during the facial emotion recognition task, by delineating valence errors (when one emotion was mistaken for another of a different valence), from other errors made during the emotion recognition test. We found that patients made more valence errors. The number of valence errors correlated with emotion conceptual knowledge as well as with reduced grey matter volume in brain regions already retrieved to correlate with this score. Specificity analyses allowed us to conclude that this cognitive relationship and anatomical overlap were not mediated by a general effect of disease severity. Our findings suggest that semantic knowledge guides the recognition of emotions and is also involved in valence processing. Our study supports a constructionist view of emotion recognition and valence processing, and could help to refine current theories on the interweaving of semantic knowledge and emotion processing.

Measuring implicit mental representations related to ethnic stereotypes with ERPs: An exploratory study

The present investigation used ERPs to detect the activation of implicit stereotypical representations associated to different ethnic groups, by means of an implicit paradigm. 285 sentences were presented to 20 Italian Caucasian participants while EEG signals were recorded from 128 scalp sites. Sentences could either violate (Incongruent condition), non-violate (Congruent condition) or be neutral (Neutral condition) with regard to stereotypical concepts concerning non-Caucasian ethnic groups (e.g. Asians, Africans, Arabs). No awareness or judgment about stereotypes was required. Participants were engaged in a fictitious task, ignoring the overall study's purpose. The results showed that Incongruent terminal words elicited a greater anterior N400 response (300-500 ms) compared to Congruent and Neutral words, reflecting a difficulty in integrating the information incongruent with pre-existing stereotypical knowledge. The participant's individual amplitude values of the N400-Difference Wave (Incongruent - Congruent), showed a direct correlation with the individual racism scores obtained at the Subtle and Blatant Prejudice Scale, administered at the end of the experimental session. Intra-cortical sources explaining the N400 involved areas of the social cognition network such as the medial frontal cortex (BA10) and the inferior temporal gyrus (BA20) which are known to support processing of information about other people and impression formation. Moreover, Congruent terminal words evoked a greater P300 response (500-600 ms) compared to the other conditions, possibly reflecting the merging of incoming inputs with anticipated semantic information. A late post-N400 frontal positivity (650-800 ms) was found to be larger to sentences concerning other-race characters (ether congruent or incongruent) compared to sentences involving own-race characters (neutral). The study corroborated the effectiveness of neurophysiological measures to assess implicit complex semantic representations and circumventing social desirability-related problems.

Interpersonal Neural Synchronization during Interpersonal Touch Underlies Affiliative Pair Bonding between Romantic Couples

Interpersonal touch plays a key role in creating and maintaining affiliative pair bonds in romantic love. However, the neurocognitive mechanism of interpersonal touch in affiliative pair bonding remains unclear. Here, we hypothesized that interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) during interpersonal touch underlies affiliative pair bonding between romantic couples. To test this hypothesis, INS between heterosexual romantic couples and between opposite-sex friends was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy-based hyperscanning, while the pairs of participants touched or vocally communicated with each other. The results showed significantly greater INS between the mentalizing and sensorimotor neural systems of two members of a pair during interpersonal touch than during vocal communication between romantic couples but not between friends. Moreover, touch-induced INS was significantly correlated with the self-reported strength of romantic love. Finally, the results also showed that men's empathy positively modulated the association between touch-induced INS increase and the strength of romantic love. These findings support the idea that INS during interpersonal touch underlies affiliative pair bonding between romantic couples and suggest that empathy plays a modulatory role in the neurocognitive mechanism of interpersonal touch in affiliative pair bonding.

Navigating the Social Environment in Adolescence: The Role of Social Brain Development

Successful navigation of the social environment is dependent on a number of social cognitive processes, including mentalizing and resistance to peer influence. These processes continue to develop during adolescence, a time of significant social change, and are underpinned by regions of the social brain that continue to mature structurally and functionally into adulthood. In this review, we describe how mentalizing, peer influence, and emotion regulation capacities develop to aid the navigation of the social environment during adolescence. Heightened susceptibility to peer influence and hypersensitivity to social rejection in adolescence increase the likelihood of both risky and prosocial behavior in the presence of peers. Developmental differences in mentalizing and emotion regulation, and the corticosubcortical circuits that underpin these processes, might put adolescents at risk for developing mental health problems. We suggest how interventions aimed at improving prosocial behavior and emotion regulation abilities hold promise in reducing the risk of poor mental health as adolescents navigate the changes in their social environment.

Effects of Rivastigmine on Brain Functional Networks in Patients With Alzheimer Disease Based on the Graph Theory

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to explore the effect of rivastigmine on brain function in Alzheimer disease (AD) by analyzing brain functional network based on the graph theory.

METHODS

We enrolled 9 patients with mild to moderate AD who received rivastigmine treatment and 9 healthy controls (HC). Subsequently, we used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data to establish the whole-brain functional network using a graph theory-based analysis. Furthermore, we compared systemic and local network indicators between pre- and posttreatment.

RESULTS

Patients with AD exhibited a posttreatment increase in the Mini-Mental State Examination scores and a decrease in the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale cognitive subscale scores and activities of daily living. The systemic network for HC and patients with AD had good pre- and posttreatment clustering coefficients. There was no change in the Cp, Lp, Gamma, Lambda, and Sigma in patients with AD. There were no significant between-group differences in the pre- and posttreatment systemic network measures. Regarding the regional network, patients with AD showed increased betweenness centrality in the bilateral caudate nucleus and right superior temporal pole after treatment with rivastigmine. However, there was no between-group difference in the pre- and posttreatment betweenness centrality of these regions. There were no significant correlations between regional network measure changes and clinical score alterations in patients with AD.

CONCLUSIONS

There are similar systemic network properties between patients with AD and HC. Rivastigmine cannot alter systemic network attributes in patients with AD. However, it improves the topological properties of regional networks and between-node information transmission in patients with AD.

Functional Connectivity Correlates of Perceived Financial Exploitation in Older Adults

Financial exploitation (FE) in old age is devastating and common; however, the neural correlates of FE are poorly understood. Previous studies of FE in older adults have implicated declines in decision making and social cognition as two risk factors for FE in later life. Here we examined whether functional connectivity among brain regions implicated in decision making and social cognition differed for those with an experience of FE vs. those without. Participants included 16 older adults without cognitive impairment who reported FE (Mean age = 70.5, 62.5% female, Mean education = 16.0 years) and 16 demographically and cognitively matched adults who denied a history of FE (Mean age = 65.1, 37.5% female, Mean education = 15.1 years). Measures of whole-brain resting-state functional connectivity in the hippocampus, insula, and medial frontal cortex were derived for each group. Compared to the non-FE group, FE was associated with greater functional connectivity between the right hippocampus and bilateral temporal regions, and less functional connectivity between the right hippocampus and the right cerebellum and bilateral lingual gyri. The FE group showed less connectivity between the right and left insula and cingulate cortex, and between the right insula and regions of the left lateral temporal gyrus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Finally, the FE group showed greater functional connectivity between the medial frontal cortex and the right lateral temporal gyrus and orbitofrontal cortex, and less functional connectivity with the right pre- and postcentral gyri. Results suggest that perceived FE in old age is associated with whole-brain functional connectivity differences involving the hippocampus, insula, and medial frontal cortex, consistent with models implicating age-associated changes in decision making and social cognition in FE.