Development and neurophysiology of mentalizing

The Role of the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Public Good and Public Bad Games: Evidence From a tDCS Study

Although humans constitute an exceptionally cooperative species that is able to collaborate on large scales for common benefits, cooperation remains a longstanding puzzle in biological and social science. Moreover, cooperation is not always related to resource allocation and gains but is often related to losses. Revealing the neurological mechanisms and brain regions related to cooperation is important for reinforcing cooperation-related gains and losses. Recent neuroscience studies have found that the decision-making process of cooperation is involved in the function of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). In the present study, we aimed to investigate the causal role of the VMPFC in cooperative behavior concerning gains and losses through the application of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). We integrated cooperation-related gains and losses into a unified paradigm. Based on the paradigm, we researched cooperation behaviors regarding gains in standard public good games and introduced public bad games to investigate cooperative behavior regarding losses. Our study revealed that the VMPFC plays different roles concerning gains and losses in situations requiring cooperation. Anodal stimulation over the VMPFC decreased cooperative behavior in public bad games, whereas stimulation over the VMPFC did not change cooperative behavior in public good games. Moreover, participants’ beliefs about others’ cooperation were changed in public bad games but not in public good games. Finally, participants’ cooperative attitudes were not influenced in the public good or public bad games under the three stimulation conditions.

The neural basis of decision-making during time-based inter-role conflict

Time-based inter-role conflict is a type of conflict in which individuals are faced with simultaneous role pressures from different role domains. Some researchers have applied a decision-making perspective to investigate inter-role conflict; however, the neural basis of inter-role decision-making has rarely been discussed. In the current study, a collection of inter-role conflict scenarios with high/low levels of conflict were selected, and sixty college students were recruited to make choices between the conflicting student and family/friend demands in each scenario while their brain activities were recorded using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Blood oxygen level-dependent conjunction analysis found that making decisions in inter-role conflict activated brain areas, including the bilateral medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), bilateral temporoparietal conjunction (TPJ), bilateral posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and bilateral anterior temporal lobe. Direct comparisons between high versus low conflict situations showed increased activation of the left dorsal anterior cingulate. A generalized psychophysiological interaction analysis further showed enhanced connectivity among the mPFC, PCC, and bilateral TPJ in high conflict versus low conflict situations. Our study improved understanding of the relationship between brain and inter-role decision-making and provided an empirical examination on the psychological process propositions.

Does the temporal cortex make us human? A review of structural and functional diversity of the primate temporal lobe

Temporal cortex is a primate specialization that shows considerable variation in size, morphology, and connectivity across species. Human temporal cortex is involved in many behaviors that are considered especially well developed in humans, including semantic processing, language, and theory of mind. Here, we ask whether the involvement of temporal cortex in these behaviors can be explained in the context of the 'general' primate organization of the temporal lobe or whether the human temporal lobe contains unique specializations indicative of a 'step change' in the lineage leading to modern humans. We propose that many human behaviors can be explained as elaborations of temporal cortex functions observed in other primates. However, changes in temporal lobe white matter suggest increased integration of information within temporal cortex and between posterior temporal cortex and other association areas, which likely enable behaviors not possible in other species.

Neural bases of social feedback processing and self-other distinction in late childhood: The role of attachment and age

Attachment plays a key role in how children process information about the self and others. Here, we examined the neural bases of interindividual differences in attachment in late childhood and tested whether social cognition-related neural activity varies as function of age. In a small sample of 8-year-old to 12-year-old children (n = 21/19), we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure neural responses during social feedback processing and self–other distinction. Attachment was assessed using child self-report. The social feedback processing task presented smiling and angry faces either confirming or disconfirming written information about participant performance on a perceptual game. In addition to observing main effects of facial emotion and performance, an increase in age was related to a shift from negative (i.e., angry faces/bad performance) to positive (i.e., smiling faces/good performance) information processing in the left amygdala/hippocampus, bilateral fusiform face area, bilateral anterior temporal pole (ATP), and left anterior insula. There were no effects of attachment on social feedback processing. The self–other distinction task presented digital morphs between children’s own faces and faces of their mother or stranger females. We observed differential activation in face processing and mentalizing regions in response to self and mother faces versus morphed faces. Furthermore, left ATP activity was associated with attachment anxiety such that greater attachment anxiety was related to a shift from heightened processing of self and mother faces to morphed faces. There were no effects of age on self–other distinction. We discuss our preliminary findings in the context of attachment theory and previous work on social evaluation and self–other processing.

Investigation of the neural correlates of mentalizing through the Dynamic Inference Task, a new naturalistic task of social cognition

Understanding others' intentions requires both the identification of social cues (e.g., emotional facial expressions, gaze direction) and the attribution of a mental state to another. The neural substrates of these processes have often been studied separately, and results are heterogeneous, in part attributable to the variety of paradigms used. The aim of the present study was to explore the neural regions underlying these sociocognitive processes, using a novel naturalistic task in which participants engage with human protagonists featured in videos. A total of 51 right-handed volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing the Dynamic Inference Task (DIT), manipulating the degree of inference (high vs. low), the presence of emotion (emotional vs. nonemotional), and gaze direction (direct vs. averted). High nonemotional inference elicited neural activation in temporal regions encompassing the right posterior superior temporal sulcus. The presence (vs. absence) of emotion in the high-inference condition elicited a bilateral pattern of activation in internal temporal areas around the amygdala and orbitofrontal structures, as well as activation in the right dorsomedial part of the superior frontal gyrus and the left precuneus. On account of its dynamic, naturalistic approach, the DIT seems a suitable task for exploring social interactions and the way we interact with others, both in nonclinical and clinical populations.

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.

Empathy influences how listeners interpret intonation and meaning when words are ambiguous

This study examines how individual pragmatic skills, and more specifically, empathy, influences language processing when a temporary lexical ambiguity can be resolved via intonation. We designed a visual-world eye-tracking experiment in which participants could anticipate a referent before disambiguating lexical information became available, by inferring either a contrast meaning or a confirmatory meaning from the intonation contour alone. Our results show that individual empathy skills determine how listeners deal with the meaning alternatives of an ambiguous referent, and the way they use intonational meaning to disambiguate the referent. Listeners with better pragmatic skills (higher empathy) were sensitive to intonation cues when forming sound-meaning associations during the unfolding of an ambiguous referent, and showed higher sensitivity to all the alternative interpretations of that ambiguous referent. Less pragmatically skilled listeners showed weaker processing of intonational meaning because they needed subsequent disambiguating material to select a referent and showed less sensitivity to the set of alternative interpretations. Overall, our results call for taking into account individual pragmatic differences in the study of intonational meaning processing and sentence comprehension in general.

Adaptive Empathy: Empathic Response Selection as a Dynamic, Feedback-Based Learning Process

Empathy allows us to respond to the emotional state of another person. Considering that an empathic interaction may last beyond the initial response, learning mechanisms may be involved in dynamic adaptation of the reaction to the changing emotional state of the other person. However, traditionally, empathy is assessed through sets of isolated reactions to another's distress. Here we address this gap by focusing on adaptive empathy, defined as the ability to learn and adjust one's empathic responses based on feedback. For this purpose, we designed a novel paradigm of associative learning in which participants chose one of two empathic strategies (reappraisal or distraction) to attenuate the distress of a target person, where one strategy had a higher probability of relieving distress. After each choice, participants received feedback about the success of their chosen strategy in relieving the target person's distress, which they could use to inform their future decisions. The results show that the participants made more accurate choices in the adaptive empathy condition than in a non-social control condition, pointing to an advantage for learning from social feedback. We found a correlation between adaptive empathy and a trait measure of cognitive empathy. These findings indicate that the ability to learn about the effectiveness of empathic responses may benefit from incorporating mentalizing abilities. Our findings provide a lab-based model for studying adaptive empathy and point to the potential contribution of learning theory to enhancing our understanding of the dynamic nature of empathy.

The Heart in the Mind: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Association Between Theory of Mind and Cardiac Vagal Tone

Theory of mind (ToM) is the human ability to infer the mental states of others in order to understand their behaviors and plan own actions. In the past decades, accumulating evidence has shown that heart rate variability (HRV), an index of parasympathetic control of the heart, is linked to behavioral regulation, social competence, and social cognition abilities, all implicated-to some extent-in ToM. This study aims to systematically review and meta-analyze the available studies, investigating the relation between ToM and HRV in typically developing people. Six studies were eligible for the meta-analysis, yielding a significant association between HRV and ToM of a small-to-medium effect size (g = 0.44). This result was not influenced by publication bias. Due to the small number of studies eligible for the meta-analysis, it was not possible to test for the effect of categorical moderators. The moderating role of sex and quality of the studies was examined by meta-regression analysis. Moderation analysis did not yield any significant effect; however, at a descriptive level, studies yielding the largest effect size were characterized by the use of high frequency-HRV assessment at rest and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test to evaluate ToM abilities. The results preliminarily suggest that tonic HRV might be used as an indicator of the ability to understand the content of mind of others.

Exploring the relationship between anthropomorphism and theory-of-mind in brain and behaviour

The process of understanding the minds of other people, such as their emotions and intentions, is mimicked when individuals try to understand an artificial mind. The assumption is that anthropomorphism, attributing human‐like characteristics to non‐human agents and objects, is an analogue to theory‐of‐mind, the ability to infer mental states of other people. Here, we test to what extent these two constructs formally overlap. Specifically, using a multi‐method approach, we test if and how anthropomorphism is related to theory‐of‐mind using brain (Experiment 1) and behavioural (Experiment 2) measures. In a first exploratory experiment, we examine the relationship between dispositional anthropomorphism and activity within the theory‐of‐mind brain network (n = 108). Results from a Bayesian regression analysis showed no consistent relationship between dispositional anthropomorphism and activity in regions of the theory‐of‐mind network. In a follow‐up, pre‐registered experiment, we explored the relationship between theory‐of‐mind and situational and dispositional anthropomorphism in more depth. Participants (n = 311) watched a short movie while simultaneously completing situational anthropomorphism and theory‐of‐mind ratings, as well as measures of dispositional anthropomorphism and general theory‐of‐mind. Only situational anthropomorphism predicted the ability to understand and predict the behaviour of the film's characters. No relationship between situational or dispositional anthropomorphism and general theory‐of‐mind was observed. Together, these results suggest that while the constructs of anthropomorphism and theory‐of‐mind might overlap in certain situations, they remain separate and possibly unrelated at the personality level. These findings point to a possible dissociation between brain and behavioural measures when considering the relationship between theory‐of‐mind and anthropomorphism.

The Paracingulate Sulcus Is a Unique Feature of the Medial Frontal Cortex Shared by Great Apes and Humans

Primate brains display a wide range of variation in size and cerebral gyrification, leading to the appearance of novel sulci in particular groups of species. We investigated sulcal organization in the medial frontal cortex of great apes, with a particular focus on the paracingulate sulcus (PCGS). Until recently, the presence of the PCGS was thought to be a structural feature unique to the human brain. However, upon closer examination, the PCGS has been observed as a variable feature that also may appear in chimpanzee brains. To understand the evolutionary origins of the sulcal anatomy in the medial frontal cortex of apes, we examined high-resolution MRI scans for the presence or absence of the PCGS and, when present, measured its length in a sample of ape brains (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans, gibbons, and siamangs). We found that the PCGS is variable in its appearance among these species, being present in 23 to 50% of great ape individuals depending on the species, but not present in gibbons or siamangs. We did not find population level hemispheric lateralization patterns or sex differences in PCGS presence across species, and we did not detect a relationship between cerebral volume and PCGS occurrence or length. Our data suggest that the PCGS is a common sulcal variant present in great apes and humans due to a shared evolutionary ancestry.

Determinants and modulators of human social decisions

Social decision making is a highly complex process that involves diverse cognitive mechanisms, and it is driven by the precise processing of information from both the environment and from the internal state. On the one hand, successful social decisions require close monitoring of others' behavior, in order to track their intentions; this can guide not only decisions involving other people, but also one's own choices and preferences. On the other hand, internal states such as own reward or changes in hormonal and neurotransmitter states shape social decisions and their underlying neural function. Here, we review the current literature on modulators and determinants of human social decisions.

Do Empathic Individuals Behave More Prosocially? Neural Correlates for Altruistic Behavior in the Dictator Game and the Dark Side of Empathy

Do empathic individuals behave more prosocially? When we think of highly empathic individuals, we tend to assume that it is likely that those people will also help others. Most theories on empathy reflect this common understanding and claim that the personality trait empathy includes the willingness to help others, but it remains a matter of debate whether empathic individuals really help more. In economics, a prominent demonstration that our behavior is not always based on pure self-interest is the Dictator Game, which measures prosocial decisions in an allocation task. This economic game shows that we are willing to give money to strangers we do not know anything about. The present study aimed to test the relationship between dispositional empathy and prosocial acting by examining the neural underpinnings of prosocial behavior in the Dictator Game. Forty-one participants played different rounds of the Dictator Game while being scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Brain activation in the right temporoparietal junction area was associated with prosocial acting (number of prosocial decisions) and associated with empathic concern. Behavioral results demonstrated that empathic concern and personal distress predicted the number of prosocial decisions, but in a negative way. Correlations with the amount of money spent did not show any significant relationships. We discuss the results in terms of group-specific effects of affective empathy. Our results shed further light on the complex behavioral and neural mechanisms driving altruistic choices.

Imagery of negative interpersonal experiences influence the neural mechanisms of social interaction

Negative interpersonal experiences are a key contributor to psychiatric disorders. While previous research has shown that negative interpersonal experiences influence social cognition, less is known about the effects on participation in social interactions and the underlying neurobiology. To address this, we developed a new naturalistic version of a gaze-contingent paradigm using real video sequences of gaze behaviour that respond to the participants' gaze in real-time in order to create a believable and continuous interactive social situation. Additionally, participants listened to two autobiographical audio-scripts that guided them to imagine a recent stressful and a relaxing situation and performed the gaze-based social interaction task before and after the presentation of either the stressful or the relaxing audio-script. Our results demonstrate that the social interaction task robustly recruits brain areas with known involvement in social cognition, namely the medial prefrontal cortex, bilateral temporoparietal junction, superior temporal sulcus as well as the precuneus. Imagery of negative interpersonal experiences compared to relaxing imagery led to a prolonged change in affective state and to increased brain responses during the subsequent social interaction paradigm in the temporoparietal junction, medial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, precuneus and inferior frontal gyrus. Taken together this study presents a new naturalistic social interaction paradigm suitable to study the neural mechanisms of social interaction and the results demonstrate that the imagery of negative interpersonal experiences affects social interaction on neural levels.

Visual experience modulates whole-brain connectivity dynamics: A resting-state fMRI study using the model of radiologists

Visual expertise refers to proficiency in visual recognition. It is attributed to accumulated visual experience in a specific domain and manifests in widespread neural activities that extend well beyond the visual cortex to multiple high‐level brain areas. An extensive body of studies has centered on the neural mechanisms underlying a distinctive domain of visual expertise, while few studies elucidated how visual experience modulates resting‐state whole‐brain connectivity dynamics. The current study bridged this gap by modeling the subtle alterations in interregional spontaneous connectivity patterns with a group of superior radiological interns. Functional connectivity analysis was based on functional brain segmentation, which was derived from a data‐driven clustering approach to discriminate subtle changes in connectivity dynamics. Our results showed there was radiographic visual experience accompanied with integration within brain circuits supporting visual processing and decision making, integration across brain circuits supporting high‐order functions, and segregation between high‐order and low‐order brain functions. Also, most of these alterations were significantly correlated with individual nodule identification performance. Our results implied that visual expertise is a controlled, interactive process that develops from reciprocal interactions between the visual system and multiple top‐down factors, including semantic knowledge, top‐down attentional control, and task relevance, which may enhance participants' local brain functional integration to promote their acquisition of specific visual information and modulate the activity of some regions for lower‐order visual feature processing to filter out nonrelevant visual details. The current findings may provide new ideas for understanding the central mechanism underlying the formation of visual expertise.

Mental travel in the person domain

"Mental travel" is a cognitive concept embodying the human capacity to intentionally disengage from the here and now, and mentally experience the world from different perspectives. We explored how individuals mentally "travel" to the point of view (POV) of other people in varying levels of personal closeness and from these perspectives process these people's social network. Under fMRI, participants were asked to "project" themselves to the POVs of four different people: a close other, a nonclose other, a famous-person, and their own-self, and rate the level of affiliation (closeness) to different individuals in the respective social network. Participants were always faster making judgments from their own POV compared with other POVs (self-projection effect) and for people who were personally closer to their adopted POV (social-distance effect). Brain activity at the medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex in the self-POV was higher, compared with all other conditions. Activity at the right temporoparietal junction and medial parietal cortex was found to distinguish between the personally related (self, close, and nonclose others) and unrelated (famous-person) people. No difference was found between mental travel to the POVs of close and nonclose others. Regardless of POV, the precuneus, anterior cingulate cortex, prefrontal cortex, and temporoparietal junction distinguished between close and distant individuals within the different social networks. Representational similarity analysis implicated the left retrosplenial cortex as crucial for social distance processing across all POVs. These distinctions suggest several constraints regarding our ability to adopt others' POV and process not only ours but also other people's social networks and stress the importance of proximity in social cognition.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Mental-travel, the ability to mentally imagine oneself in a different place and time, is a fundamental cognitive concept. Investigation of mental-travel in the social domain under fMRI revealed that a network of brain regions, largely overlapping the default-mode-network, is responsible for "traveling" to points of view of different others; moreover, this network distinguishes between closer and less-close others, suggesting that mental-travel is a rich dynamical process, encompassing individuals in different proximities and these individuals' social network.

EEG and fMRI evidence for autobiographical memory reactivation in empathy

Empathy relies on the ability to mirror and to explicitly infer others' inner states. Theoretical accounts suggest that memories play a role in empathy, but direct evidence of reactivation of autobiographical memories (AM) in empathy is yet to be shown. We addressed this question in two experiments. In Experiment 1, electrophysiological activity (EEG) was recorded from 28 participants. Participants performed an empathy task in which targets for empathy were depicted in contexts for which participants either did or did not have an AM, followed by a task that explicitly required memory retrieval of the AM and non‐AM contexts. The retrieval task was implemented to extract the neural fingerprints of AM and non‐AM contexts, which were then used to probe data from the empathy task. An EEG pattern classifier was trained and tested across tasks and showed evidence for AM reactivation when participants were preparing their judgement in the empathy task. Participants self‐reported higher empathy for people depicted in situations they had experienced themselves as compared to situations they had not experienced. A second independent fMRI experiment replicated this behavioural finding and showed increased activation for AM compared to non‐AM in the brain networks underlying empathy: precuneus, posterior parietal cortex, superior and inferior parietal lobule, and superior frontal gyrus. Together, our study reports behavioural, electrophysiological, and fMRI evidence that robustly supports AM reactivation in empathy.

'No Man is an Island': Effects of social seclusion on social dream content and REM sleep

Based on the Social Simulation Theory of dreaming (SST), we studied the effects of voluntary social seclusion on dream content and sleep structure. Specifically, we studied the Compensation Hypothesis, which predicts social dream contents to increase during social seclusion, the Sociality Bias - a ratio between dream and wake interactions - and the Strengthening Hypothesis, which predicts an increase in familiar dream characters during seclusion. Additionally, we assessed changes in the proportion of REM sleep. Sleep data and dream reports from 18 participants were collected preceding (n = 94), during (n = 90) and after (n = 119) a seclusion retreat. Data were analysed using linear mixed-effects models. We failed to support the Compensation Hypothesis, with dreams evidencing fewer social interactions during seclusion. The Strengthening Hypothesis was supported, with more familiar characters present in seclusion dreams. Dream social interactions maintained the Sociality Bias even under seclusion. Additionally, REM sleep increased during seclusion, coinciding with previous literature and tentatively supporting the proposed attachment function for social REM sleep.

Seeing things differently: Gaze shapes neural signal during mentalizing according to emotional awareness

Studies on social cognition often use complex visual stimuli to asses neural processes attributed to abilities like "mentalizing" or "Theory of Mind" (ToM). During the processing of these stimuli, eye gaze, however, shapes neural signal patterns. Individual differences in neural operations on social cognition may therefore be obscured if individuals' gaze behavior differs systematically. These obstacles can be overcome by the combined analysis of neural signal and natural viewing behavior. Here, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with eye-tracking to examine effects of unconstrained gaze on neural ToM processes in healthy individuals with differing levels of emotional awareness, i.e. alexithymia. First, as previously described for emotional tasks, people with higher alexithymia levels look less at eyes in both ToM and task-free viewing contexts. Further, we find that neural ToM processes are not affected by individual differences in alexithymia per se. Instead, depending on alexithymia levels, gaze on critical stimulus aspects reversely shapes the signal in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and anterior temporoparietal junction (TPJ) as distinct nodes of the ToM system. These results emphasize that natural selective attention affects fMRI patterns well beyond the visual system. Our study implies that, whenever using a task with multiple degrees of freedom in scan paths, ignoring the latter might obscure important conclusions.

Neural correlates of theory of mind in children and adults using CAToon: Introducing an open-source child-friendly neuroimaging task

Theory of Mind (ToM) or mentalizing is a basic social skill which is characterized by our ability of perspective-taking and the understanding of cognitive and emotional states of others. ToM development is essential to successfully navigate in various social contexts. The neural basis of mentalizing is well-studied in adults, however, less evidence exists in children. Potential reasons are methodological challenges, including a lack of age-appropriate fMRI paradigms. We introduce a novel child-friendly and open-source ToM fMRI task, for which accuracy and performance were evaluated behaviorally in 60 children ages three to nine (32♂). Furthermore, 27 healthy young adults (14♂; mean = 25.41 years) and 33 children ages seven to thirteen (17♂; mean = 9.06 years) completed the Cognitive and Affective Theory of Mind Cartoon task (CAToon;www.jacobscenter.uzh.ch/en/research/developmental_neuroscience/downloads/catoon.html) during a fMRI session. Behavioral results indicate that children of all ages can solve the CAToon task above chance level, though reliable performance is reached around five years. Neurally, activation increases were observed for adults and children in brain regions previously associated with mentalizing, including bilateral temporoparietal junction, temporal gyri, precuneus and medial prefrontal/orbitofrontal cortices. We conclude that CAToon is suitable for developmental neuroimaging studies within an fMRI environment starting around preschool and up.

Effects of anodal multichannel transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on social-cognitive performance in healthy subjects: A randomized sham-controlled crossover pilot study

Recent studies suggest that temporoparietal junction (TPJ) modulation can influence attention and social cognition performance. Nevertheless, no studies have used multichannel transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over bilateral TPJ to estimate the effects on these neuropsychological functions. The project STIPED is using optimized multichannel stimulation as an innovative treatment approach for chronic pediatric neurodevelopmental disorders, namely in children/adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In this pilot study, we aim to explore whether anodal multichannel tDCS coupled with a Joint Attention Task (JAT) influences social-cognitive task performance relative to sham stimulation, both in an Emotion Recognition Task (ERT) and in a Mooney Faces Detection Task (MFDT), as well as to evaluate this technique's safety and tolerability. Twenty healthy adults were enrolled in a randomized, single-blinded, sham-controlled, crossover study. During two sessions, participants completed the ERT and the MFDT before and after 20min of sham or anodal tDCS over bilateral TPJ. No significant differences on performance accuracy and reaction time were found between stimulation conditions for all tasks, including the JAT. A significant main time effect for overall accuracy and reaction time was found for the MFDT. Itching was the most common side effect and stimulation conditions detection was at chance level. Results suggest that multichannel tDCS over bilateral TPJ does not affect performance of low-level emotional recognition tasks in healthy adults. Although preliminary safety and tolerability are demonstrated, further studies over longer periods will be pursued to investigate the clinical efficacy in children/adolescents with ASD, where social cognition impairments are preponderant.

Oxytocin facilitates socially directed attention

Socially directed gaze following is an important component of social interaction and communication, allowing us to attend mutually with others to objects or people so that we can share their experience and also learn from them. This type of joint social attention is impaired in disorders such as autism. Previous research has demonstrated that the neuropeptide oxytocin can facilitate attention toward social cues, although to date no study in humans has investigated its influence on socially directed gaze or on associations of the latter with autistic and empathic traits. In a within-subject, randomized, placebo-controlled trial we used eye-tracking to investigate the effects of intranasal oxytocin (24 IU) on socially directed gaze toward one of two objects in 40 adult male subjects. Subjects viewed videos of an actor and actress directing their gaze toward one of two objects by either moving only their eyes, moving both their eyes and head, or moving their eyes and head and pointing with a finger. Results showed that OXT increased the proportion of time subjects viewed the object the actor or actress were looking/pointing at across all three conditions, although unexpectedly we found no associations with trait autism or empathy under either placebo or OXT treatments. These findings demonstrate that OXT can facilitate socially directed gaze following to promote mutual attention toward objects which may be potentially beneficial therapeutically in disorders with impaired social communication and interaction.

The tDCS effect on Prosocial Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review

Previous studies have shown that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) could potentially promote prosocial behaviors. However, results from randomized controlled trials are inconsistent. The current meta-analysis aimed to assess the effects of anodal and cathodal tDCS using single-session protocols on prosocial behaviors in healthy young adults and explore potential moderators of these effects. The results showed that compared with sham stimulation, anodal (excitatory) stimulation significantly increased (g = 0.27, 95% CI [0.11, 0.43], Z = 3.30, P = 0.001) and cathodal (inhibitory) stimulation significantly decreased prosocial behaviors (g = −0.19, 95% CI [−0.39, −0.01], Z = −1.95, P = 0.051) using a multilevel meta-analytic model. These effects were not significantly modulated by stimulation parameters (e.g. duration, intensity and site) and types of prosocial behavior. The risk of publication bias for the included effects was minimal, and no selective reporting (e.g. P-hacking) was found in the P-curve analysis. This meta-analysis showed that both anodal and cathodal tDCS have small but significant effects on prosocial behaviors. The current study provides evidence that prosocial behaviors are linked to the activity of the ‘social brain’. Future studies are encouraged to further explore whether tDCS could effectively treat social dysfunctions in psychiatry disorders.

Multimodal prognosis of negative symptom severity in individuals at increased risk of developing psychosis

Negative symptoms occur frequently in individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis and contribute to functional impairments. The aim of this study was to predict negative symptom severity in CHR after 9 months. Predictive models either included baseline negative symptoms measured with the Structured Interview for Psychosis-Risk Syndromes (SIPS-N), whole-brain gyrification, or both to forecast negative symptoms of at least moderate severity in 94 CHR. We also conducted sequential risk stratification to stratify CHR into different risk groups based on the SIPS-N and gyrification model. Additionally, we assessed the models' ability to predict functional outcomes in CHR and their transdiagnostic generalizability to predict negative symptoms in 96 patients with recent-onset psychosis (ROP) and 97 patients with recent-onset depression (ROD). Baseline SIPS-N and gyrification predicted moderate/severe negative symptoms with significant balanced accuracies of 68 and 62%, while the combined model achieved 73% accuracy. Sequential risk stratification stratified CHR into a high (83%), medium (40-64%), and low (19%) risk group regarding their risk of having moderate/severe negative symptoms at 9 months follow-up. The baseline SIPS-N model was also able to predict social (61%), but not role functioning (59%) at above-chance accuracies, whereas the gyrification model achieved significant accuracies in predicting both social (76%) and role (74%) functioning in CHR. Finally, only the baseline SIPS-N model showed transdiagnostic generalization to ROP (63%). This study delivers a multimodal prognostic model to identify those CHR with a clinically relevant negative symptom severity and functional impairments, potentially requiring further therapeutic consideration.

Cognitive Neural Mechanism of Social Anxiety Disorder: A Meta-Analysis Based on fMRI Studies

Objective: The present meta-analysis aimed to explore the cognitive and neural mechanism of social anxiety disorder (SAD) from a whole-brain view, and compare the differences in brain activations under different task paradigms. Methods: We searched Web of Science Core Collection and other databases with the keywords related to social anxiety, social phobia, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for comparing persons with SAD to healthy controls and used the activation likelihood estimation method. Thirty-seven papers met the inclusion criteria, including 15 with emotional faces as stimuli, 8 presenting specific situations as stimuli, and 14 using other types of tasks as stimuli. Among these papers, 654 participants were in the SAD group and 594 participants were in the control group with 335 activation increase points and 115 activation decrease points. Results: Whole-brain analysis showed that compared with healthy controls, persons with SAD showed significantly lower activation of the left anterior cingulate gyrus (MNI coordinate: x = −6, y = 22, z = 38; p 0.001). Sub-group analysis based on task indicated that when performing tasks with emotional faces as stimuli, persons with SAD showed significantly lower activation of the left cerebellar slope and fusiform gyrus (MNI coordinate: x = −26, y = −68, z = −12; p 0.001), and significantly higher activation of the right supramarginal gyrus and angular gyrus, than healthy controls (MNI coordinate: x = 58, y = −52, z = 30; p 0.001). Conclusion: Individuals with social anxiety disorder show abnormal activation in the cingulate gyrus, which is responsible for the process of attention control, and task type can influence the activation pattern.

Decentering as a core component in the psychological treatment and prevention of youth anxiety and depression: a narrative review and insight report

Decentering is a ubiquitous therapeutic concept featuring in multiple schools of psychological intervention and science. It describes an ability to notice to day-to-day psychological stressors (negative thoughts, feelings, and memories) from an objective self-perspective and without perseverating on the themes they represent. Thus, decentering dampens the impact and distress associated with psychological stressors that can otherwise increase mental ill health in vulnerable individuals. Importantly, the strengthening of decentering-related abilities has been flagged as a core component of psychological interventions that treat and prevent anxiety and depression. We provide an in-depth review evidence of the salutary effects of decentering with a special focus on youth mental health. This is because adolescence is a critical window for the development of psychopathology but is often under-represented in this research line. A narrative synthesis is presented that integrates and summarizes findings on a range of decentering-related abilities. Section 1 reviews extant conceptualizations of decentering and data-driven approaches to characterize its characteristic. A novel definition is then offered to guide future empirical research. Section 2 overviews laboratory-based research into the development of decentering as well as its relationship with anxiety and depression. Section 3 examines the role decentering-related skills play in psychological interventions for anxiety and depression. Critically, we review evidence that treatment-related increases in decentering predict latter reductions in anxiety and depression severity. Each section highlights important areas for future research. The report concludes by addressing the vital questions of whether, how, why and when decentering alleviates youth anxiety and depression.

The Seven Selves of Dementia

The self is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, encompassing a variety of cognitive processes and psychosocial influences. Considering this, there is a multiplicity of "selves," the current review suggesting that seven fundamental self-processes can be identified that further our understanding of the experience of dementia. These include (1) an embodied self, manifest as corporeal awareness; (2) an agentic self, related to being an agent and influencing life circumstances; (3) an implicit self, linked to non-conscious self-processing; (4) a critical self, which defines the core of self-identity; (5) a surrogate self, based on third-person perspective information; (6) an extended self, including external objects or existences that are incorporated into the self; and, finally, (7) an emergent self, a property of the self-processes that give rise to the sense of a unified self. These are discussed in relation to self-awareness and their use in making sense of the experience of dementia.

Reciprocity and alignment: quantifying coupling in dynamic interactions

Recent accounts of social cognition focus on how we do things together, suggesting that becoming aligned relies on a reciprocal exchange of information. The next step is to develop richer computational methods that quantify the degree of coupling and describe the nature of the information exchange. We put forward a definition of coupling, comparing it to related terminology and detail, available computational methods and the level of organization to which they pertain, presenting them as a hierarchy from weakest to richest forms of coupling. The rationale is that a temporally coherent link between two dynamical systems at the lowest level of organization sustains mutual adaptation and alignment at the highest level. Postulating that when we do things together, we do so dynamically over time and we argue that to determine and measure instances of true reciprocity in social exchanges is key. Along with this computationally rich definition of coupling, we present challenges for the field to be tackled by a diverse community working towards a dynamic account of social cognition.

Multivariable pattern classification differentiates relational self-esteem from personal self-esteem

Relational self-esteem (RSE) refers to one’s sense of self-worth based on the relationship with significant others, such as family and best friends. Although previous neuroimaging research has investigated the neural processes of RSE, it is less clear how RSE is represented in multivariable neural patterns. Being able to identify a stable RSE signature could contribute to knowledge about relational self-worth. Here, using multivariate pattern classification to differentiate RSE from personal self-esteem (PSE), which pertains to self-worth derived from personal attributes, we obtained a stable diagnostic signature of RSE relative to PSE. We found that multivariable neural activities in the superior/middle temporal gyrus, precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, dorsal medial Prefrontal Cortex (dmPFC) and temporo-parietal junction were responsible for diagnosis of RSE, suggesting that the evaluation of RSE involves the retrieval of relational episodic memory, perspective-taking and value calculation. Further, these diagnostic neural signatures were able to sensitively decode neural activities related to RSE in another independent test sample, indicating the reliability of the brain state represented. By providing a reliable multivariate brain pattern for RSE relative to PSE, our results informed more cognitively prominent processing of RSE than that of PSE and enriched our knowledge about how relational self-worth is generated in the brain.

Neural Mechanisms of Observational Learning: A Neural Working Model

Humans and some animal species are able to learn stimulus-response (S-R) associations by observing others' behavior. It saves energy and time and avoids the danger of trying the wrong actions. Observational learning (OL) depends on the capability of mapping the actions of others into our own behaviors, processing outcomes, and combining this knowledge to serve our goals. Observational learning plays a central role in the learning of social skills, cultural knowledge, and tool use. Thus, it is one of the fundamental processes in which infants learn about and from adults (Byrne and Russon, 1998). In this paper, we review current methodological approaches employed in observational learning research. We highlight the important role of the prefrontal cortex and cognitive flexibility to support this learning process, develop a new neural working model of observational learning, illustrate how imitation relates to observational learning, and provide directions for future research.

Revisiting Human-Agent Communication: The Importance of Joint Co-construction and Understanding Mental States

The study of human-human communication and the development of computational models for human-agent communication have diverged significantly throughout the last decade. Yet, despite frequently made claims of “super-human performance” in, e.g., speech recognition or image processing, so far, no system is able to lead a half-decent coherent conversation with a human. In this paper, we argue that we must start to re-consider the hallmarks of cooperative communication and the core capabilities that we have developed for it, and which conversational agents need to be equipped with: incremental joint co-construction and mentalizing. We base our argument on a vast body of work on human-human communication and its psychological processes that we reason to be relevant and necessary to take into account when modeling human-agent communication. We contrast those with current conceptualizations of human-agent interaction and formulate suggestions for the development of future systems.

A dimensional approach to functional movement disorders: Heresy or opportunity

Functional movement disorders (FMD) are a common and disabling neuropsychiatric condition, part of the spectrum of functional neurological/conversion disorder. FMD represent one of the most enigmatic disorders in the history of medicine. However, in the twenty years after the first report of distinctive abnormal brain activity associated with functional motor symptoms, there have been tremendous advances in the pathophysiologic understanding of these disorders. FMD can be characterized as a disorder of aberrant neurocircuitry interacting with environmental and genetic factors. These developments suggest that research on FMD could be better served by an integrative, neuroscience-based approach focused on functional domains and their neurobiological substrates. This approach has been developed in 'Research Domain Criteria' (RDoC) project, which promotes a dimensional approach to psychiatric disorders. Here, we use the RDoC conceptualization to review recent neuroscience research on FMD, focusing on the domains most relevant to these disorders. We discuss how the adoption of a similar integrative framework may facilitate the identification of the mechanisms underlying FMD and could also have potential clinical applicability.

Aberrant Gray Matter Volume and Cortical Surface in Paranoid-Type Delusional Disorder

INTRODUCTION

Delusions are core symptoms of schizophrenia-spectrum and related disorders. Despite their clinical relevance, the neural correlates underlying such phenomena are unclear. Recent research suggests that specific delusional content may be associated with distinct neural substrates.

OBJECTIVE

Here, we used structural magnetic resonance imaging to investigate multiple parameters of brain morphology in patients presenting with paranoid type delusional disorder (pt-DD, n = 14) compared to those of healthy controls (HC, n = 25).

METHODS

Voxel- and surface-based morphometry for structural data was used to investigate gray matter volume (GMV), cortical thickness (CT) and gyrification.

RESULTS

Compared to HC, patients with pt-DD showed reduced GMV in bilateral amygdala and right inferior frontal gyrus. Higher GMV in patients was found in bilateral orbitofrontal and in left superior frontal cortices. Patients also had lower CT in frontal and temporal regions. Abnormal gyrification in patients was evident in frontal and temporal areas, as well as in bilateral insula.

CONCLUSIONS

The data suggest the presence of aberrant GMV in a right prefrontal region associated with belief evaluation, as well as distinct structural abnormalities in areas that essentially subserve processing of fear, anxiety and threat in patients with pt-DD. It is possible that cortical features of distinct evolutionary and genetic origin, i.e. CT and gyrification, contribute differently to the pathogenesis of pt-DD.

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.

Perspective taking effects are modulated by the valence of stimuli

Previously we found perspective taking (PT) influenced affect ratings of negative pictures more than neutral pictures. The current follow-up experiments extend that research to explore effects of perspective taking with positive valence pictures. We used stimuli consisting of neutral, happy and sad pictures. Stimuli were presented either mixed within blocks (Experiment 1) or separated by emotion (neutrals + happy/sad) into two separate blocks (Experiment 2). Participants rated (from 1- to 7 based on emotional strength) stimuli from different perspectives (sensitive/tough/their own, i.e., "me"). Emotional strength rating was a dependent variable. A significant interaction between valence and PT was found in both experiments. The difference between adopting sensitive and tough perspectives toward sadness was larger than toward the neutral condition, replicating our results from the previous study. The same difference (sensitive-tough) was larger toward the happiness condition than toward the neutral one (this was a trend in Experiment 1 and was significant in Experiment 2) and toward the sadness condition than toward the happy one. These results suggest that PT effects on emotional ratings are modulated by valence of stimuli.

Theory of mind processing in expectant fathers: Associations with prenatal oxytocin and parental attunement

Social cognition may facilitate fathers' sensitive caregiving behavior. We administered the Why-How Task, an fMRI task that elicits theory of mind processing, to expectant fathers (n = 39) who also visited the laboratory during their partner's pregnancy and provided a plasma sample for oxytocin assay. Three months postpartum, fathers reported their beliefs about parenting. When rating "Why" an action was being performed versus "How" the action was being performed (Why > How contrast), participants showed activation in regions theorized to support theory of mind, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and superior temporal sulcus. Fathers' prenatal oxytocin levels predicted greater signal change during the Why > How contrast in the inferior parietal lobule. Both prenatal oxytocin and attunement parenting beliefs were associated with Why > How activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a theory of mind region implicated in emotion regulation. Posterior parahippocampal gyrus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation during the Why > How contrast predicted fathers' attunement parenting beliefs. In conclusion, fathers' neural activation when engaging in a theory of mind task was associated with their prenatal oxytocin levels and their postpartum attunement parenting beliefs. Results suggest biological and cognitive components of fathering may track with the theory of mind processing.

Attributing social meaning to animated shapes: A new experimental study of apparent behavior

In 1944, Heider and Simmel reported that observers could perceive simple animated geometric shapes as characters with emotions, intentions, and other social attributes. This work has been cited over 3000 times and has had wide and ongoing influence on the study of social cognition and social intelligence. However, many researchers in this area have continued to use the original Heider and Simmel black-and-white video. We asked whether the original findings could be reproduced 75 years later by creating 32 new colored animated shape videos designed to depict various social plots and testing whether they can evoke similar spontaneous social attributions. Participants (N = 66) viewed our videos and were asked to write narratives which we coded for indicia of different types of social attributions. Consistent with Heider and Simmel, we found that participants spontaneously attributed social meaning to the videos. We observed that responses to our videos were also similar to responses to the original video reported by Klin (2000), despite being only 13-23 s and portraying a broader range of social plots. Participants varied in how many social attributions they made in response, and the videos varied in how much they elicited such responses. Our set of animated shape videos is freely available online for all researchers to use and forms the basis of a multiple-choice assessment of social intelligence (Brown et al., 2019).

Resting-state abnormalities in functional connectivity of the default mode network in autism spectrum disorder: a meta-analysis

Increasing evidence has shown that the resting state brain connectivity of default mode network (DMN) which are important for social cognition are disrupted in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, previous neuroimaging studies did not present consistent results. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis of resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) studies of DMN in the individuals with ASD and healthy controls (HCs) to provide a new perspective for investigating the pathophysiology of ASD. We carried out a search using the terms: ("ASD" OR "Autism") AND ("resting state" OR "rest") AND ("DMN" OR "default mode network") in PubMed, Web of Science and Embase to identify the researches published before January 2020. Ten resting state datasets including 203 patients and 208 HCs were included. Anisotropic Effect Size version of Signed Differential Mapping (AES-SDM) method was applied to identify group differences. In comparison with the HCs, the patients with ASD showed increased connectivity in cerebellum, right middle temporal gyrus, superior occipital gyrus, right supramarginal gyrus, supplementary motor area and putamen. Decreased connectivity was discovered in some nodes of DMN, such as medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus and angular gyrus. These results may help us to further clarify the neurobiological mechanisms in patients with ASD.

Single-neuronal predictions of others' beliefs in humans

Human social behaviour crucially depends on our ability to reason about others. This capacity for theory of mind has a vital role in social cognition because it enables us not only to form a detailed understanding of the hidden thoughts and beliefs of other individuals but also to understand that they may differ from our own^1-3. Although a number of areas in the human brain have been linked to social reasoning^4,5 and its disruption across a variety of psychosocial disorders^6-8, the basic cellular mechanisms that underlie human theory of mind remain undefined. Here, using recordings from single cells in the human dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, we identify neurons that reliably encode information about others' beliefs across richly varying scenarios and that distinguish self- from other-belief-related representations. By further following their encoding dynamics, we show how these cells represent the contents of the others' beliefs and accurately predict whether they are true or false. We also show how they track inferred beliefs from another's specific perspective and how their activities relate to behavioural performance. Together, these findings reveal a detailed cellular process in the human dorsomedial prefrontal cortex for representing another's beliefs and identify candidate neurons that could support theory of mind.

Self and Other Mentalizing Polarities and Dimensions of Mental Health: Association With Types of Symptoms, Functioning and Well-Being

Research suggests that the ability to understand one's own and others' minds, or mentalizing, is a key factor for mental health. Most studies have focused the attention on the association between global measures of mentalizing and specific disorders. In contrast, very few studies have analyzed the association between specific mentalizing polarities and global measures of mental health. This study aimed to evaluate whether self and other polarities of mentalizing are associated with a multidimensional notion of mental health, which considers symptoms, functioning, and well-being. Additionally, the level or depth of mentalizing within each polarity was also analyzed. A sample of 214 adolescents (12-18 years old, M = 14.7, and SD = 1.7; 53.3% female) was evaluated on measures of self- (Trait Meta-Mood Scale or TMMS-24) and other- mentalizing (Adolescent Mentalizing Interview or AMI), multi-informed measures of psychopathology and functioning based on Achenbach's system, and measures of psychological well-being (self-esteem, happiness, and motivation to life goals). Results revealed no association between mentalizing polarities and higher-order symptom factors (internalizing, externalizing, and global symptoms or "p" factor). Self-mentalizing was associated with self-esteem (B = 0.076, p < 0.0005) and motivation to life goals (B = 0.209, p = 0.002), and other-mentalizing was associated to general, social and role functioning (B = 0.475, p < 0.0005; B = 0.380, p = 0.005; and B = 0.364, p = 0.004). This association between aspects of self-other mentalizing and self-other function has important implications for treatment and prevention. Deeper mentalizing within each polarity (i.e., comprehension beyond simple attention to one's own mental states, and mentalizing referred to attachment figures vs. mentalizing referred to the characters of a story) revealed stronger associations with functioning and well-being. Because mentalizing polarities are associated with functioning and well-being but not with symptoms, a new hypothesis is developed: mentalizing does not contribute to resiliency by preventing symptoms, but by helping to deal with them, thus improving functioning and well-being independently of psychopathology. These findings support that promoting mentalizing across development may improve mental health, even in non-clinical population.

Physiological Resonance in Empathic Stress: Insights from Nonlinear Dynamics of Heart Rate Variability

Because most humans live and work in populated environments, researchers recently took into account that people may not only experience first-hand stress, but also second-hand stress related to the ability to empathically share another person’s stress response. Recently, researchers have begun to more closely examine the existence of such empathic stress and highlighted the human propensity to physiologically resonate with the stress responses of others. As in case of first-hand stress, empathic stress could be deleterious for health if people experience exacerbated activation of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal and autonomic nervous systems. Thus, exploring empathic stress in an observer watching someone else experiencing stress is critical to gain a better understanding of physiological resonance and conduct strategies for health prevention. In the current study, we investigated the influence of empathic stress responses on heart rate variability (HRV) with a specific focus on nonlinear dynamics. Classic and nonlinear markers of HRV time series were computed in both targets and observers during a modified Trier social stress test (TSST). We capitalized on multiscale entropy, a reliable marker of complexity for depicting neurovisceral interactions (brain-to-heart and heart-to-brain) and their role in physiological resonance. State anxiety and affect were evaluated as well. While classic markers of HRV were not impacted by empathic stress, we showed that the complexity marker reflected the existence of empathic stress in observers. More specifically, a linear model highlighted a physiological resonance phenomenon. We conclude on the relevance of entropy in HRV dynamics, as a marker of complexity in neurovisceral interactions reflecting physiological resonance in empathic stress.

The Relationship between Theory of Mind and Intelligence: A Formative g Approach

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability understand that other people’s mental states may be different from one’s own. Psychometric models have shown that individual differences in ToM can largely be attributed to general intelligence (g) (Coyle et al. 2018). Most psychometric models specify g as a reflective latent variable, which is interpreted as a general ability that plays a causal role in a broad range of cognitive tasks, including ToM tasks. However, an alternative approach is to specify g as a formative latent variable, that is, an overall index of cognitive ability that does not represent a psychological attribute (Kovacs and Conway 2016). Here we consider a formative g approach to the relationship between ToM and intelligence. First, we conducted an SEM with reflective g to test the hypothesis that ToM is largely accounted for by a general ability. Next, we conducted a model with formative g to determine whether the relationship between ToM and intelligence is influenced by domain-specific tasks. Finally, we conducted a redundancy analysis to examine the contribution of each g variable. Results suggest that the relationship between ToM and intelligence in this study was influenced by language-based tasks, rather than solely a general ability.

Neural and social correlates of attitudinal brokerage: using the complete social networks of two entire villages

To avoid polarization and maintain small-worldness in society, people who act as attitudinal brokers are critical. These people maintain social ties with people who have dissimilar and even incompatible attitudes. Based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (n = 139) and the complete social networks from two Korean villages (n = 1508), we investigated the individual-level neural capacity and social-level structural opportunity for attitudinal brokerage regarding gender role attitudes. First, using a connectome-based predictive model, we successfully identified the brain functional connectivity that predicts attitudinal diversity of respondents' social network members. Brain regions that contributed most to the prediction included mentalizing regions known to be recruited in reading and understanding others’ belief states. This result was corroborated by leave-one-out cross-validation, fivefold cross-validation and external validation where the brain connectivity identified in one village was used to predict the attitudinal diversity in another independent village. Second, the association between functional connectivity and attitudinal diversity of social network members was contingent on a specific position in a social network, namely, the structural brokerage position where people have ties with two people who are not otherwise connected.

Brain and motor synchrony in children and adolescents with ASD-a fNIRS hyperscanning study

Brain-to-brain synchrony has been proposed as an important mechanism underlying social interaction. While first findings indicate that it may be modulated in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), no study to date has investigated the influence of different interaction partners and task characteristics. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning, we assessed brain-to-brain synchrony in 41 male typically developing (TD) children (8-18 years; control sample), as well as 18 children with ASD and age-matched TD children (matched sample), while performing cooperative and competitive tasks with their parents and an adult stranger. Dyads were instructed either to respond jointly in response to a target (cooperation) or to respond faster than the other player (competition). Wavelet coherence was calculated for oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin brain signals. In the control sample, a widespread enhanced coherence was observed for parent-child competition, and a more localized coherence for parent-child cooperation in the frontopolar cortex. While behaviorally, children with ASD showed a lower motor synchrony than children in the TD group, no significant group differences were observed on the neural level. In order to identify biomarkers for typical and atypical social interactions in the long run, more research is needed to investigate the neurobiological underpinnings of reduced synchrony in ASD.

When Alterations in Social Cognition Meet Subjective Complaints in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evaluation With the "ClaCoS" Battery

Background: Deficit in social communication is a core feature in Autism Spectrum Disorder but remains poorly assessed in classical clinical practice, especially in adult populations. This gap between needs and practice is partly due to a lack of standardized evaluation tools. The multicentric Research group in psychiatry GDR3557 (Institut de Psychiatrie) developed a new battery for social cognitive evaluation named "ClaCoS," which allows testing the main components of social cognition: Emotion Recognition, Theory of Mind, Attributional Style, and Social Perception and Knowledge. It further provides an assessment of subjective complaints in social cognition. Methods: We compared the social cognition abilities of 45 adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder without intellectual disability and 45 neurotypically developed volunteers using the "ClaCoS" battery, in order to determine its relevance in the evaluation of social cognition impairments in autism. A correlational approach allowed us to test the links between subjective complaints and objectively measured impairments for the different components of social cognition. Results: As expected, the Autism Spectrum Disorder group showed deficits in all four components of social cognition. Moreover, they reported greater subjective complaints than controls regarding their social abilities, correlated to the neuropsychological assessments. Conclusion: The "ClaCoS" battery is an interesting tool allowing to assess social impairments in autism and to specify the altered components, for a better adjustment of tailored social cognition training programs. Our results further suggest that people with Autism Spectrum Disorder have a good social cognitive insight, i.e., awareness into social cognitive functioning, and may thus benefit from social cognitive training tools.

Default Mode Network Alterations Induced by Childhood Trauma Correlate With Emotional Function and SLC6A4 Expression

As one of the most studied resting-state functional networks, default mode network (DMN) is related to pathogenesis in neuropsychiatry. However, it is unclear whether changed DMN connectivity is transformed into vulnerability to psychopathology in adults who experienced childhood trauma, and what is the underlying genetic basis. Exploring the effect of DMN on environment-behavior pathway and the related genetic modulation mechanisms could further a better understanding of psychiatric pathogenesis and early prevention strategy. Two hundred and sixteen young adults with varying levels of early trauma indexed by the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) were recruited from the community. Static and dynamic functional connectivity based on DMN seeds and independent component analysis based on whole-brain voxels were combined to explore DMN alterations related to the CTQ score. Relationships between CTQ score, DMN connectivity, and behavioral scores were confirmed by mediation effect analysis. Imaging-genomic correlations were further used to identify risk genes whose expression was associated with the DMN changes. Dysregulated DMN connectivity was found both in seed-level and voxel-level analyses. Moreover, the functional disruption in the left temporal pole, right parahippocampal gyrus, and frontoparietal connectivity mediated the effects of childhood trauma on emotional behavior. The serotonin transporter gene was identified and might suggest the biological underpinning of the relationship between childhood trauma, DMN, and emotion regulation. Changed DMN may be useful as biomarkers to provide a powerful supplement to psychological evaluation related to childhood trauma. Combined with gene expression profiles, our findings advance a more integrative understanding of DMN alterations induced by childhood trauma, and clarify its implications for psychiatric pathogenesis and early prevention strategies.