Functional activity of the right temporo-parietal junction and of the medial prefrontal cortex associated with true and false belief reasoning

Neural bases of social deficits in ADHD: A systematic review. Does the Theory of Mind matter?

INTRODUCTION

The Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) causes serious interpersonal problems from childhood to adulthood, one of them being problematic social functioning. This phenomenon in ADHD should be associated with impairments in the Theory of Mind (ToM). Therefore, understanding the neural correlates of the ToM could be crucial for helping individuals with ADHD with their social functioning. Thus, we aimed to review published literature concerning neuroanatomical and functional correlates of ToM deficits in children and adolescents with ADHD.

METHODS

We reviewed studies published between 1970 and 2023. In accordance with PRISMA guidelines, after data from three databases were collected, two authors (LN and PM) independently screened all relevant records (n=638) and consequently, both authors did the data extraction. The quality of the included studies (n=5) was measured by a modified version of The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale and by measures specific for our study. This systematic review was registered on PROSPERO (CRD42020139847).

RESULTS

Results indicated that impairments in performing of the ToM tasks were negatively associated with the grey matter volume in the bilateral amygdala and hippocampus in both, ADHD and control group. In EEG studies, a significantly greater electrophysiological activity during ToM tasks was observed in the, frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital lobes in participants with ADHD as compared to healthy subjects.

CONCLUSION

More research is needed to explore the ToM deficits in children with ADHD. Future research might focus on the neural circuits associated with attention and inhibition, which deficits seems to contribute to the ToM deficits in children and adolescents with ADHD.

Dissociating neural sensitivity to target identity and mental state content type during inferences about other minds

Predicting and inferring what other people think and feel (mentalizing) is central to social interaction. Since the discovery of the brain's "mentalizing network", fMRI studies have probed the lines along which the activity of different regions in this network converges and dissociates. Here, we use fMRI meta-analysis to aggregate across the stimuli, paradigms, and contrasts from past studies in order to definitively test two sources of possible sensitivity among brain regions of this network with particular theoretical relevance. First, it has been proposed that mentalizing processes depend on aspects of target identity (whose mind is considered), with self-projection or simulation strategies engaging disproportionately for psychologically close targets. Second, it has been proposed that mentalizing processes depend on content type (what the inference is), with inferences about epistemic mental states (e.g. beliefs and knowledge) engaging different processes than mentalizing about other types of content (e.g. emotions or preferences). Overall, evidence supports the conclusion that different mentalizing regions are sensitive to target identity and content type, respectively, but with some points of divergence from previous claims. Results point to fruitful directions for future studies, with implications for theories of mentalizing.

"Why do they do it?": The short-story task for measuring fiction-based mentalizing in autistic and non-autistic individuals

This study aimed to validate the short-story-task (SST) based on Dodell-Feder et al. as an instrument to quantify the ability of mentalizing and to differentiate between non-autistic adults and autistic adults, who may have acquired rules to interpret the actions of non-autistic individuals. Autistic (N = 32) and non-autistic (N = 32) adult participants were asked to read "The End of Something" by Ernest Hemingway and to answer implicit and explicit mentalizing questions, and comprehension questions. Furthermore, verbal and nonverbal IQ was measured and participants were asked how much fiction they read each month. Mentalizing performance was normally distributed for autistic and non-autistic participants with autistic participants scoring in the lower third of the distribution. ROC (receiver operator curve) analysis revealed the task to be an excellent discriminator between autistic and non-autistic participants. A linear regression analysis identified number of books read, years of education and group as significant predictors. Overall, the SST is a promising measure of mentalizing. On the one hand, it differentiates among non-autistic individuals and on the other hand it is sensitive towards performance differences in mentalizing among autistic adults. Implications for interventions are discussed.

The cross-domain functional organization of posterior lateral temporal cortex: insights from ALE meta-analyses of 7 cognitive domains spanning 12,000 participants

The posterior lateral temporal cortex is implicated in many verbal, nonverbal, and social cognitive domains and processes. Yet without directly comparing these disparate domains, the region's organization remains unclear; do distinct processes engage discrete subregions, or could different domains engage shared neural correlates and processes? Here, using activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses, the bilateral posterior lateral temporal cortex subregions engaged in 7 domains were directly compared. These domains comprised semantics, semantic control, phonology, biological motion, face processing, theory of mind, and representation of tools. Although phonology and biological motion were predominantly associated with distinct regions, other domains implicated overlapping areas, perhaps due to shared underlying processes. Theory of mind recruited regions implicated in semantic representation, tools engaged semantic control areas, and faces engaged subregions for biological motion and theory of mind. This cross-domain approach provides insight into how posterior lateral temporal cortex is organized and why.

Characterising the spatial and oscillatory unfolding of Theory of Mind in adults using fMRI and MEG

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a core social cognitive skill that refers to the ability to attribute mental states to others. ToM involves understanding that others have beliefs, thoughts and desires that may be different from one's own and from reality. ToM is crucial to predict behaviour and navigate social interactions. This study employed the complementary methodological advantages of both functional MRI (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) to examine the neural underpinnings of ToM in adults. Twenty healthy adults were first recruited to rate and describe 28 videos (15s long), each containing three moving shapes designed to depict either social interactions or random motion (control condition). The first sample of adults produced consistent narratives for 6 of those social videos and of those, 4 social videos and 4 control videos were chosen to include in the neuroimaging study. Another sample of twenty-five adults were then recruited to complete the neuroimaging in MEG and fMRI. In fMRI, we found increased activation in frontal-parietal regions in the social compared to the control condition corroborating previous fMRI findings. In MEG, we found recruitment of ToM networks in the social condition in theta, beta and gamma bands. The right supramarginal and angular gyri (right temporal parietal junction), right inferior parietal lobe and right temporal pole were recruited in the first 5s of the videos. Frontal regions such as the superior frontal gyrus were recruited in the second time window (5–10s). Brain regions such as the bilateral amygdalae were also recruited (5–10s), indicating that various social processes were integrated in understanding the social videos. Our study is one of the first to combine multi-modal neuroimaging to examine the neural networks underlying social cognitive processes, combining the strengths of the spatial resolution of fMRI and temporal resolution of MEG. Understanding this information from both modalities helped delineate the mechanism by which ToM processing unfolds over time in healthy adults. This allows us to determine a benchmark against which clinical populations can be compared.

Functional connectivity of the medial prefrontal cortex related to mindreading abilities

The medial prefrontal cortex is a key region of mindreading belonging to the mentalizing system, a set of brain areas underlying mental state inference based on reasoning on social concepts. The aim of this study was to characterize the functional connectivity between regions involved in mindreading and to highlight the processes it underpins, focusing on the dorsal and ventral parts of the medial prefrontal cortex. We analyzed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging of 56 healthy volunteers, to study the relationship between mindreading abilities and functional connectivity of the medial prefrontal cortex. Cognitive mindreading performances were correlated with connectivity between the medial prefrontal cortex and frontal regions involved in the regulation of the salience of one’s own mental contents, with a distinction between the dorsal part connected to regions subtending inhibition processes and the ventral part to emotional regions. Affective mindreading performances were negatively correlated with negative connectivity of the ventro- and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex with sensorimotor regions belonging to the mirror neuron system subtending the simulation of mental states. These findings suggested a role of the medial prefrontal cortex to decrease the salience of one’s own mental content and in the antisynchronous interaction between the mentalizing and mirror neurons systems.

Novel Cognitive Functions Arise at the Convergence of Macroscale Gradients

Functions in higher-order brain regions are the source of extensive debate. Although past trends have been to describe the brain-especially posterior cortical areas-in terms of a set of functional modules, a new emerging paradigm focuses on the integration of proximal functions. In this review, we synthesize emerging evidence that a variety of novel functions in the higher-order brain regions are due to convergence: convergence of macroscale gradients brings feature-rich representations into close proximity, presenting an opportunity for novel functions to arise. Using the TPJ as an example, we demonstrate that convergence is enabled via three properties of the brain: (1) hierarchical organization, (2) abstraction, and (3) equidistance. As gradients travel from primary sensory cortices to higher-order brain regions, information becomes abstracted and hierarchical, and eventually, gradients meet at a point maximally and equally distant from their sensory origins. This convergence, which produces multifaceted combinations, such as mentalizing another person's thought or projecting into a future space, parallels evolutionary and developmental characteristics in such regions, resulting in new cognitive and affective faculties.

Perceptual Access Reasoning (PAR) in Developing a Representational Theory of Mind

An important part of children's social and cognitive development is their understanding that people are psychological beings with internal, mental states including desire, intention, perception, and belief. A full understanding of people as psychological beings requires a representational theory of mind (ToM), which is an understanding that mental states can faithfully represent reality, or misrepresent reality. For the last 35 years, researchers have relied on false‐belief tasks as the gold standard to test children's understanding that beliefs can misrepresent reality. In false‐belief tasks, children are asked to reason about the behavior of agents who have false beliefs about situations. Although a large body of evidence indicates that most children pass false‐belief tasks by the end of the preschool years, the evidence we present in this monograph suggests that most children do not understand false beliefs or, surprisingly, even true beliefs until middle childhood. We argue that young children pass false‐belief tasks without understanding false beliefs by using perceptual access reasoning (PAR). With PAR, children understand that seeing leads to knowing in the moment, but not that knowing also arises from thinking or persists as memory and belief after the situation changes. By the same token, PAR leads children to fail true‐belief tasks. PAR theory can account for performance on other traditional tests of representational ToM and related tasks, and can account for the factors that have been found to correlate with or affect both true‐ and false‐belief performance. The theory provides a new laboratory measure which we label the belief understanding scale (BUS). This scale can distinguish between a child who is operating with PAR versus a child who is understanding beliefs. This scale provides a method needed to allow the study of the development of representational ToM.

In this monograph, we report the outcome of the tests that we have conducted of predictions generated by PAR theory. The findings demonstrated signature PAR limitations in reasoning about the mind during the ages when children are hypothesized to be using PAR. In Chapter II, secondary analyses of the published true‐belief literature revealed that children failed several types of true‐belief tasks.

Chapters III through IX describe new empirical data collected across multiple studies between 2003 and 2014 from 580 children aged 4–7 years, as well as from a small sample of 14 adults. Participants were recruited from the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. All participants were native English‐speakers. Children were recruited from university‐sponsored and community preschools and daycare centers, and from hospital maternity wards. Adults were university students who participated to partially fulfill course requirements for research participation. Sociometric data were collected only in Chapter IX, and are fully reported there.

In Chapter III, minor alterations in task procedures produced wide variations in children's performance in 3‐option false‐belief tasks. In Chapter IV, we report findings which show that the developmental lag between children's understanding ignorance and understanding false belief is longer than the lag reported in previous studies. In Chapter V, children did not distinguish between agents who have false beliefs versus agents who have no beliefs. In Chapter VI, findings showed that children found it no easier to reason about true beliefs than to reason about false beliefs. In Chapter VII, when children were asked to justify their correct answers in false‐belief tasks, they did not reference agents’ false beliefs. Similarly, in Chapter VIII, when children were asked to explain agents’ actions in false‐belief tasks, they did not reference agents’ false beliefs. In Chapter IX, children who were identified as using PAR differed from children who understood beliefs along three dimensions—in levels of social development, inhibitory control, and kindergarten adjustment.

Although the findings need replication and additional studies of alternative interpretations, the collection of results reported in this monograph challenges the prevailing view that representational ToM is in place by the end of the preschool years. Furthermore, the pattern of findings is consistent with the proposal that PAR is the developmental precursor of representational ToM. The current findings also raise questions about claims that infants and toddlers demonstrate ToM‐related abilities, and that representational ToM is innate.

Large-scale functional brain networks for consciousness

The generation and maintenance of consciousness are fundamental but difficult subjects in the fields of psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and medicine. However, recent developments in neuro-imaging techniques coupled with network analysis have greatly advanced our understanding of consciousness. The present review focuses on large-scale functional brain networks based on neuro-imaging data to explain the awareness (contents) and wakefulness of consciousness. Despite limitations, neuroimaging data suggests brain maps for important psychological and cognitive processes such as attention, language, self-referential, emotion, motivation, social behavior, and wakefulness. We considered a review of these advancements would provide new insights into research on the neural correlates of consciousness.

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.

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.

Implicit Learning of True and False Belief Sequences

To investigate whether people can implicitly learn regularities in a social context, we developed a new implicit sequence learning task combining elements from classic false belief and serial reaction time tasks. Participants learned that protagonists were offered flowers at four locations. The protagonists' beliefs concerning the flowers were true or false, depending on their orientation, respectively, toward the scene (so that the flowers could be seen) or away from it. Unbeknown to the participants, there was a fixed belief-related sequence involving three dimensions (identity of the two protagonists, true-false belief orientation held by the protagonists, and flower location as believed by the protagonists). Participants had to indicate as fast as possible where the flowers were located (Experiment 1), or how many flowers were given (Experiment 2) according to the protagonists. Experiment 1 combined perceptual and motor processes (as both the belief-related sequence and motor responses referred to location), whereas Experiment 2 unconfounded the sequence and motor responses, allowing to investigate pure perceptual implicit learning. For reasons of comparison, two non-social conditions were created in Experiment 2 by replacing the protagonists with two non-social objects-colored cameras or shapes. Results revealed significant implicit sequence learning of all belief-related dimensions in Experiment 1, and of true-false belief orientation in Experiment 2, even without a motor confound. Importantly, there were faster reaction times and stronger sequence learning effects in the social than in the non-social conditions. The present findings demonstrate for the first time that people are able to implicitly learn belief-related sequences.

Cognitive and Emotional Mapping With SEEG

Mapping of cortical functions is critical for the best clinical care of patients undergoing epilepsy and tumor surgery, but also to better understand human brain function and connectivity. The purpose of this review is to explore existing and potential means of mapping higher cortical functions, including stimulation mapping, passive mapping, and connectivity analyses. We examine the history of mapping, differences between subdural and stereoelectroencephalographic approaches, and some risks and safety aspects, before examining different types of functional mapping. Much of this review explores the prospects for new mapping approaches to better understand other components of language, memory, spatial skills, executive, and socio-emotional functions. We also touch on brain-machine interfaces, philosophical aspects of aligning tasks to brain circuits, and the study of consciousness. We end by discussing multi-modal testing and virtual reality approaches to mapping higher cortical functions.

Theory of Mind impairments in early course schizophrenia: An fMRI study

Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to perceive others' mental states. Lower ToM has often been associated with poorer functional outcomes in schizophrenia, making it an important treatment target. However, little is known about the underlying neural mechanisms associated with ToM impairments in early course schizophrenia. This study aimed to validate the False Belief task to measure ToM in schizophrenia and to identify aberrant brain activity associated with impairments. 36 individuals with early course schizophrenia and 17 controls were administered the Hinting Task and performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) False Belief task. Between-group differences were examined in a priori regions of interest (ROIs) known to be associated with ToM tasks: medial prefrontal cortex, ventral medial prefrontal cortex, and both the left and right temporal parietal junction (TPJ). We observed a significant positive association between Hinting Task performance and False Belief accuracy, validating the False Belief task as a measure of ToM. Compared to controls, individuals with schizophrenia exhibited reduced brain activation in all four ROIs during the fMRI False Belief task. Furthermore, task-related activations in bilateral TPJs were shown to be positively associated with ToM abilities regardless of diagnosis. Individuals with schizophrenia with lower performance on the False Belief task showed significant reductions in task-related activation in the bilateral TPJ compared to controls, while reductions were not significant for those with higher performance. Our findings suggest that lower neural activity in the bilateral TPJ are associated with ToM impairments observed in individuals with early course schizophrenia.

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.

Modeling Within-Item Dependencies in Parallel Data on Test Responses and Brain Activation

In this paper, we propose a joint modeling approach to analyze dependency in parallel response data. We define two types of dependency: higher-level dependency and within-item conditional dependency. While higher-level dependency can be estimated with common latent variable modeling approaches, within-item conditional dependency is a unique kind of information that is often not captured with extant methods, despite its potential to shed new insights into the relationship between the two types of response data. We differentiate three ways of modeling within-item conditional dependency by conditioning on raw values, expected values, or residual values of the response data, which have different implications in terms of response processes. The proposed approach is illustrated with the example of analyzing parallel data on response accuracy and brain activations from a Theory of Mind assessment. The consequence of ignoring within-item conditional dependency is investigated with empirical and simulation studies in comparison to conventional dependency analysis that focuses exclusively on relationships between latent variables.

Frontotemporal dementia, music perception and social cognition share neurobiological circuits: A meta-analysis

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a neurodegenerative disease that presents with profound changes in social cognition. Music might be a sensitive probe for social cognition abilities, but underlying neurobiological substrates are unclear. We performed a meta-analysis of voxel-based morphometry studies in FTD patients and functional MRI studies for music perception and social cognition tasks in cognitively normal controls to identify robust patterns of atrophy (FTD) or activation (music perception or social cognition). Conjunction analyses were performed to identify overlapping brain regions. In total 303 articles were included: 53 for FTD (n = 1153 patients, 42.5% female; 1337 controls, 53.8% female), 28 for music perception (n = 540, 51.8% female) and 222 for social cognition in controls (n = 5664, 50.2% female). We observed considerable overlap in atrophy patterns associated with FTD, and functional activation associated with music perception and social cognition, mostly encompassing the ventral language network. We further observed overlap across all three modalities in mesolimbic, basal forebrain and striatal regions. The results of our meta-analysis suggest that music perception and social cognition share neurobiological circuits that are affected in FTD. This supports the idea that music might be a sensitive probe for social cognition abilities with implications for diagnosis and monitoring.

A brain network that supports consensus-seeking and conflict-resolving of college couples' shopping interaction

One of the typical campus scenes is the social interaction between college couples, and the lesson couples must keep learning is to adapt to each other. This fMRI study investigated the shopping interactions of 30 college couples, one lying inside and the other outside the scanner, beholding the same item from two connected PCs, making preference ratings and subsequent buy/not-buy decisions. The behavioral results showed the clear modulation of significant others’ preferences onto one’s own decisions, and the contrast of the “shop-together vs. shop-alone”, and the “congruent (both liked or disliked the item, 68%) vs. incongruent (one liked but the other disliked, and vice versa)” together trials, both revealed bilateral temporal parietal junction (TPJ) among other reward-related regions, likely reflecting mentalizing during preference harmony. Moreover, when contrasting “own-high/other-low vs. own-low/other-high” incongruent trials, left anterior inferior parietal lobule (l-aIPL) was parametrically mapped, and the “yield (e.g., own-high/not-buy) vs. insist (e.g., own-low/not-buy)” modulation further revealed left lateral-IPL (l-lIPL), together with left TPJ forming a local social decision network that was further constrained by the mediation analysis among left TPJ–lIPL–aIPL. In sum, these results exemplify, via the two-person fMRI, the neural substrate of shopping interactions between couples.

Neural Correlates of Theory of Mind Are Preserved in Young Women With Anorexia Nervosa

People with anorexia nervosa (AN) commonly exhibit social difficulties, which may be related to problems with understanding the perspectives of others, commonly known as Theory of Mind (ToM) processing. However, there is a dearth of literature investigating the neural basis of these differences in ToM and at what age they emerge. This study aimed to test for differences in the neural correlates of ToM processes in young women with AN, and young women weight-restored (WR) from AN, as compared to healthy control participants (HC). Based on previous findings in AN, we hypothesized that young women with current or prior AN, as compared to HCs, would exhibit a reduced neural response in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the inferior frontal gyrus, and the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) whilst completing a ToM task. We recruited 73 young women with AN, 45 WR young women, and 70 young women without a history of AN to take part in the current study. Whilst undergoing a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan, participants completed the Frith-Happé task, which is a commonly used measure of ToM with demonstrated reliability and validity in adult populations. In this task, participants viewed the movements of triangles, which depicted either action movements, simple interactions, or complex social interactions. Viewing trials with more complex social interactions in the Frith-Happé task was associated with increased brain activation in regions including the right TPJ, the bilateral mPFC, the cerebellum, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. There were no group differences in neural activation in response to the ToM contrast. Overall, these results suggest that the neural basis of spontaneous mentalizing is preserved in most young women with AN.

A Brain-Inspired Model of Theory of Mind

Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others, and to understand that others have beliefs that are different from one's own. Although functional neuroimaging techniques have been widely used to establish the neural correlates implicated in ToM, the specific mechanisms are still not clear. We make our efforts to integrate and adopt existing biological findings of ToM, bridging the gap through computational modeling, to build a brain-inspired computational model for ToM. We propose a Brain-inspired Model of Theory of Mind (Brain-ToM model), and the model is applied to a humanoid robot to challenge the false belief tasks, two classical tasks designed to understand the mechanisms of ToM from Cognitive Psychology. With this model, the robot can learn to understand object permanence and visual access from self-experience, then uses these learned experience to reason about other's belief. We computationally validated that the self-experience, maturation of correlate brain areas (e.g., calculation capability) and their connections (e.g., inhibitory control) are essential for ToM, and they have shown their influences on the performance of the participant robot in false-belief task. The theoretic modeling and experimental validations indicate that the model is biologically plausible, and computationally feasible as a foundation for robot theory of mind.

Effort shapes social cognition and behaviour: A neuro-cognitive framework

Theoretical accounts typically posit that variability in social behaviour is a function of capacity limits. We argue that many social behaviours are goal-directed and effortful, and thus variability is not just a function of capacity, but also motivation. Leveraging recent work examining the cognitive, computational and neural basis of effort processing, we put forward a framework for motivated social cognition. We argue that social cognition is demanding, people avoid its effort costs, and a core-circuit of brain areas that guides effort-based decisions in non-social situations may similarly evaluate whether social behaviours are worth the effort. Thus, effort sensitivity dissociates capacity limits from social motivation, and may be a driver of individual differences and pathological impairments in social cognition.

Trivariate Theory of Mind Data Analysis with a Conditional Joint Modeling Approach

Theory of mind (ToM) is an essential social-cognitive ability to understand one's own and other people's mental states. Neural data as well as behavior data have been utilized in ToM research, but the two types of data have rarely been analyzed together, creating a large gap in the literature. In this paper, we propose and apply a novel joint modeling approach to analyze brain activations with two types of behavioral data, response times and response accuracy, obtained from a multi-item ToM assessment, with the intention to shed new light on the nature of the underlying process of ToM reasoning. Our trivariate data analysis suggested that different levels or kinds of processes might be involved during the ToM assessment, which seem to differ in terms of cognitive efficiency and sensitivity to ToM items and the correctness of item responses. Additional details on the trivariate data analysis results are provided with discussions on their implications for ToM research.

A neurocognitive model of perceptual decision-making on emotional signals

Humans make various kinds of decisions about which emotions they perceive from others. Although it might seem like a split-second phenomenon, deliberating over which emotions we perceive unfolds across several stages of decisional processing. Neurocognitive models of general perception postulate that our brain first extracts sensory information about the world then integrates these data into a percept and lastly interprets it. The aim of the present study was to build an evidence-based neurocognitive model of perceptual decision-making on others' emotions. We conducted a series of meta-analyses of neuroimaging data spanning 30 years on the explicit evaluations of others' emotional expressions. We find that emotion perception is rather an umbrella term for various perception paradigms, each with distinct neural structures that underline task-related cognitive demands. Furthermore, the left amygdala was responsive across all classes of decisional paradigms, regardless of task-related demands. Based on these observations, we propose a neurocognitive model that outlines the information flow in the brain needed for a successful evaluation of and decisions on other individuals' emotions. HIGHLIGHTS: Emotion classification involves heterogeneous perception and decision-making tasks Decision-making processes on emotions rarely covered by existing emotions theories We propose an evidence-based neuro-cognitive model of decision-making on emotions Bilateral brain processes for nonverbal decisions, left brain processes for verbal decisions Left amygdala involved in any kind of decision on emotions.

Representational similarity analysis reveals atypical age-related changes in brain regions supporting face and car recognition in autism

BACKGROUND

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is associated with atypical activation in the ventral stream during face processing. The current study further characterizes the development of face processing in ASD using a multivoxel pattern analysis, which assesses the similarity in the representation of exemplars from the same category.

METHODS

Ninety-two children, adolescents and adults - with and without ASD - performed the Cambridge Face Memory Test, the Australian Face Memory Test, and a matched car memory test. Regions of interest during these tasks included Fusiform Face Area (FFA), based on the literature, and additional, structurally-defined regions in the ventral stream. Group differences in the patterns of activity within these ROIs when memorizing exemplars were examined using a representational similarity analysis (RSA).

RESULTS

The RSA revealed significant interactions between age group and diagnostic group in R FFA, with increasing similarity within a category (faces, cars) into adulthood typically but not in those with ASD. This pattern was also evident in structurally defined ventral stream regions, namely L inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), bilateral temporoparietal junction (TPJ), L inferior temporal lobule, and the R fusiform gyrus.

CONCLUSIONS

The specialization of face and object processing from adolescence to adulthood evident in typical development may be impaired in ASD, undermining the ability to reach adult-level visual processing in those with ASD.

Religious Belief at the Level of the Brain: Neural Correlates and Influence of Culture

This article summarizes key functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that correlate the neural substrate of religious belief and the influence of culture. I searched and updated PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) publications until March 2018 on religious belief and related topics. Belief, whether religious or nonreligious, is associated with greater signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC), a brain region important for self-representation, emotional associations, reward, and goal-driven behavior. However, religious belief, compared with nonreligious belief, registers greater signal in the precuneus, anterior insula, ventral striatum, anterior cingulate cortex, and posterior medial cortex-areas associated with governance of emotion, self-representation, and cognitive conflict. In contrast, nonreligious belief registers more signal in the left hemisphere memory networks (Harris et al. PLoS One 2009;4:e0007272). Moreover, cultural studies revealed self-judgment tasks in nonbelievers involved more the vMPFC, whereas Christians had significantly increased activation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (Han et al. Soc Neurosci 2008;3:1-15). Consequently, the Christian belief of "surrendering to Christ" seemed to weaken neural coding of stimulus self-relatedness but enhanced neural activity underlying evaluative processes of self-referential stimuli. The findings suggest a transformation of the semantic autobiographical self to Christ's conceptual self.

Neural processing of social interaction: Coordinate-based meta-analytic evidence from human neuroimaging studies

While the action observation and mentalizing networks are considered to play complementary roles in understanding others' goals and intentions, they might be concurrently engaged when processing social interactions. We assessed this hypothesis via three activation-likelihood-estimation meta-analyses of neuroimaging studies on the neural processing of: (a) social interactions, (b) individual actions by the action observation network, and (c) mental states by the mentalizing network. Conjunction analyses and direct comparisons unveiled overlapping and specific regions among the resulting maps. We report quantitative meta-analytic evidence for a "social interaction network" including key nodes of the action observation and mentalizing networks. An action-social interaction-mentalizing gradient of activity along the posterior temporal cortex highlighted a hierarchical processing of interactions, from visuomotor analyses decoding individual and shared intentions to in-depth inferences on actors' intentional states. The medial prefrontal cortex, possibly in conjunction with the amygdala, might provide additional information concerning the affective valence of the interaction. This evidence suggests that the functional architecture underlying the neural processing of interactions involves the joint involvement of the action observation and mentalizing networks. These data might inform the design of rehabilitative treatments for social cognition disorders in pathological conditions, and the assessment of their outcome in randomized controlled trials.

Do you know what I'm thinking? Temporal and spatial brain activity during a theory-of-mind task in children with autism

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First MEG study of neural underpinnings of theory of mind differences in autism.

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Children with autism show decreased LTPJ activity from 300 to 375 and 425 to 500 ms.

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Children with autism also show increased RIFG activity from 325 to 375 ms.

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Co-incident lower LTPJ and higher RIFG activity implies compensatory use of RIFG.

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Executive functions may augment impaired theory of mind in autism.

The social impairments observed in children with autism spectrum disorder are thought to arise in part from deficits in theory of mind, the ability to understand other people’s thoughts and feelings. To determine the temporal-spatial dynamics of brain activity underlying these atypical theory-of-mind processes, we used magnetoencephalography to characterize the sequence of functional brain patterns (i.e. when and where) related to theory-of-mind reasoning in 19 high-functioning children with autism compared to 22 age- and sex-matched typically-developing children aged 8–12 during a false-belief (theory-of-mind) task. While task performance did not differ between the two groups, children with autism showed reduced activation in the left temporoparietal junction between 300–375 and 425–500 ms, as well as increased activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus from 325 to 375 ms compared to controls. The overlap in decreased temporoparietal junction activity and increased right inferior frontal gyrus activation from 325 to 375 ms suggests that in children with autism, the right inferior frontal gyrus may compensate for deficits in the temporoparietal junction, a neural theory-of-mind network hub. As the right inferior frontal gyrus is involved in inhibitory control, this finding suggests that children with autism rely on executive functions to bolster their false-belief understanding.

False Belief Reasoning in Adults with and without Autistic Spectrum Disorder: Similarities and Differences

A central diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is the qualitative impairment in reciprocal social interaction and a prominent hypotheses that tried to explain this impairment is the Theory of Mind (ToM) deficit hypotheses. On a behavioral level the critical test for having a ToM, the understanding of false beliefs (FB), is often used for testing ToM abilities in individuals with ASD. Investigating the neural underpinnings several neuroimaging studies revealed a network of areas involved in FB reasoning in neurotypical individuals. For ASD individuals the neural correlates of false belief processing are largely unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and an adapted unexpected transfer task, that makes it possible to distinguish between the computation of diverging beliefs and the selection of a belief-associated response, we investigated a group of adult high-functioning individuals with ASD (N = 15) and an age and IQ matched group of neurotypical adults (NT; N = 15). On the behavioral level we found no group differences. On the neural level, results were two-fold: In the story phase, in which participants had to compute whether the character's belief is congruent or incongruent to their own belief, there were no differences between neurotypical participants and those diagnosed with ASD. But, in the subsequent question phase, participants with ASD showed increased activity in the bilateral anterior prefrontal cortex, the left posterior frontal cortex, the left superior temporal gyrus, and the left temporoparietal area. These results suggest that during the story phase in which the participants processed observable actions the neural correlates do not differ between adult individuals with ASD and NT individuals. But in the question phase in which participants had to infer an unobservable mental state results revealed neural differences between the two groups. Possibly, these subtle neural processing differences may contribute to the fact that adult ASD individuals are able to master explicit false belief tasks but fail to apply their strategies during everyday social interaction.

Brain activation for spontaneous and explicit false belief tasks overlaps: new fMRI evidence on belief processing and violation of expectation

There is extensive discussion on whether spontaneous and explicit forms of ToM are based on the same cognitive/neural mechanisms or rather reflect qualitatively different processes. For the first time, we analyzed the BOLD signal for false belief processing by directly comparing spontaneous and explicit ToM task versions. In both versions, participants watched videos of a scene including an agent who acquires a true or false belief about the location of an object (belief formation phase). At the end of the movies (outcome phase), participants had to react to the presence of the object. During the belief formation phase, greater activity was found for false vs true belief trials in the right posterior parietal cortex. The ROI analysis of the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), confirmed this observation. Moreover, the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC) was active during the outcome phase, being sensitive to violation of both the participant’s and agent’s expectations about the location of the object. Activity in the TPJ and aMPFC was not modulated by the spontaneous/explicit task. Overall, these data show that neural mechanisms for spontaneous and explicit ToM overlap. Interestingly, a dissociation between TPJ and aMPFC for belief tracking and outcome evaluation, respectively, was also found.

Do implicit and explicit belief processing share neural substrates?

Humans rely on their ability to infer another person's mental state to understand and predict others' behavior ("theory of mind," ToM). Multiple lines of research suggest that not only are humans able to consciously process another person's belief state, but also are able to do so implicitly. Here we explored how general implicit belief states are represented in the brain, compared to those substrates involved in explicit ToM processes. Previous work on this topic has yielded conflicting results, and thus, the extent to which the implicit and explicit ToM systems draw on common neural bases is unclear. Participants were presented with "Sally-Anne" type movies in which a protagonist was falsely led to believe a ball was in one location, only for a puppet to later move it to another location in their absence (false-belief condition). In other movies, the protagonist had their back turned the entire time the puppet moved the ball between the two locations, meaning that they had no opportunity to develop any pre-existing beliefs about the scenario (no-belief condition). Using a group of independently localized explicit ToM brain regions, we found greater activity for false-belief trials, relative to no-belief trials, in the right temporoparietal junction, right superior temporal sulcus, precuneus, and left middle prefrontal gyrus. These findings extend upon previous work on the neural bases of implicit ToM by showing substantial overlap between this system and the explicit ToM system, suggesting that both abilities might recruit a common set of mentalizing processes/functional brain regions. Hum Brain Mapp 38:4760-4772, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Neuroanatomical correlates of forgiving unintentional harms

Mature moral judgments rely on the consideration of a perpetrator’s mental state as well as harmfulness of the outcomes produced. Prior work has focused primarily on the functional correlates of how intent information is neurally represented for moral judgments, but few studies have investigated whether individual differences in neuroanatomy can also explain variation in moral judgments. In the current study, we conducted voxel-based morphometry analyses to address this question. We found that local grey matter volume in the left anterior superior temporal sulcus, a region in the functionally defined theory of mind or mentalizing network, was associated with the degree to which participants relied on information about innocent intentions to forgive accidental harms. Our findings provide further support for the key role of mentalizing in the forgiveness of accidental harms and contribute preliminary evidence for the neuroanatomical basis of individual differences in moral judgments.

An fMRI study on the comparison of different types of false belief reasoning: False belief-based emotion and behavior attribution

False belief (FB) reasoning is a key Theory of Mind (ToM) competence. By 4 years of age, children understand that a person's behavior can be based on a FB about reality. Children cannot understand that a person's emotion can also be based on a FB before the age of six. In order to generate hypothesis on basic processes distinguishing these two types of belief reasoning, the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study in adults directly compares functional activity associated with these two FB tasks. Both tasks were associated with activity in the ToM network including the medial prefrontal cortex and the left temporo-parietal junction. Differential activity was observed in the anterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for FB-based emotion relative to behavior attribution. Contrary to FB behavior attribution, FB-based emotion attribution requires the processing of two different mental states: a belief and an emotion and their relation to each other. The activity pattern may reflect the differential demands on cognitive processes associated with the two different belief-based attribution processes. These results shed new light on the still ongoing debate about the nature of the developmental lag between the two FB tasks.

Left inferior parietal lobe engagement in social cognition and language

Social cognition and language are two core features of the human species. Despite distributed recruitment of brain regions in each mental capacity, the left parietal lobe (LPL) represents a zone of topographical convergence. The present study quantitatively summarizes hundreds of neuroimaging studies on social cognition and language. Using connectivity-based parcellation on a meta-analytically defined volume of interest (VOI), regional coactivation patterns within this VOI allowed identifying distinct subregions. Across parcellation solutions, two clusters emerged consistently in rostro-ventral and caudo-ventral aspects of the parietal VOI. Both clusters were functionally significantly associated with social-cognitive and language processing. In particular, the rostro-ventral cluster was associated with lower-level processing facets, while the caudo-ventral cluster was associated with higher-level processing facets in both mental capacities. Contrarily, in the (less stable) dorsal parietal VOI, all clusters reflected computation of general-purpose processes, such as working memory and matching tasks, that are frequently co-recruited by social or language processes. Our results hence favour a rostro-caudal distinction of lower- versus higher-level processes underlying social cognition and language in the left inferior parietal lobe.

Differential Patterns of Dysconnectivity in Mirror Neuron and Mentalizing Networks in Schizophrenia

Impairments of social cognition are well documented in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ), but the neural basis remains poorly understood. In light of evidence that suggests that the "mirror neuron system" (MNS) and the "mentalizing network" (MENT) are key substrates of intersubjectivity and joint action, it has been suggested that dysfunction of these neural networks may underlie social difficulties in SCZ patients. Additionally, MNS and MENT might be associated differently with positive vs negative symptoms, given prior social cognitive and symptom associations. We assessed resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) in meta-analytically defined MNS and MENT networks in this patient group. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were obtained from 116 patients and 133 age-, gender- and movement-matched healthy controls (HC) at 5 different MRI sites. Network connectivity was analyzed for group differences and correlations with clinical symptoms. Results demonstrated decreased connectivity within the MNS and also the MENT in patients compared to controls. Notably, dysconnectivity of the MNS was related to symptom severity, while no such relationship was observed for the MENT. In sum, these findings demonstrate that differential patterns of dysconnectivity exist in SCZ patients, which may contribute differently to the interpersonal difficulties commonly observed in the disorder.

Potential relationship of self-injurious behavior to right temporo-parietal lesions

Self-injurious behavior (SIB) is associated with several neurologic and psychiatric syndromes but rarely with focal lesions. Two patients with lesions of the right temporo-parietal junction presented to psychiatric inpatient services with SIB in the absence of notable neurologic deficits or suicidal ideation. Right temporo-parietal lesions may be associated with disturbances of agency and body ownership, both of which may facilitate SIB. Misoplegia, or hatred of a limb, may be associated with SIB and has been reported without hemiplegia with a right temporo-parietal lesion. Further study is warranted to improve our understanding of the mechanisms underlying SIB.

Thinking about the thoughts of others; temporal and spatial neural activation during false belief reasoning

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to understand the perspectives, mental states and beliefs of others in order to anticipate their behaviour and is therefore crucial to social interactions. Although fMRI has been widely used to establish the neural networks implicated in ToM, little is known about the timing of ToM-related brain activity. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to measure the neural processes underlying ToM, as MEG provides very accurate timing and excellent spatial localization of brain processes. We recorded MEG activity during a false belief task, a reliable measure of ToM, in twenty young adults (10 females). MEG data were recorded in a 151 sensor CTF system (MISL, Coquitlam, BC) and data were co-registered to each participant's MRI (Siemens 3T) for source reconstruction. We found stronger right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) activations in the false belief condition from 150ms to 225ms, in the right precuneus from 275ms to 375ms, in the right inferior frontal gyrus from 200ms to 300ms and the superior frontal gyrus from 300ms to 400ms. Our findings extend the literature by demonstrating the timing and duration of neural activity in the main regions involved in the "mentalizing" network, showing that activations related to false belief in adults are predominantly right lateralized and onset around 100ms. The sensitivity of MEG will allow us to determine spatial and temporal differences in the brain processes in ToM in younger populations or those who demonstrate deficits in this ability.

Competing against a familiar friend: Interactive mechanism of the temporo-parietal junction with the reward-related regions during episodic encoding

Competition enhances learning under certain circumstances. However, little is known about how the neural mechanisms involved in a competition during the episodic encoding are modulated by the social distance of personal relationships with opponents. To investigate this issue, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we scanned healthy young adults during a competition with their familiar friends and unfamiliar others in the episodic encoding. Three major findings emerged from this study. First, activations in the right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) were significantly greater in the competition with familiar friends than with unfamiliar others, and the activations in this region were significantly correlated with the subjective ratings of motivation. Second, striatum and amygdala activations increased by the competition with familiar friends were significantly correlated with the increased ratings of pleasantness, which reflected emotionally positive feelings in victory for the competition with familiar opponents. Third, the functional connectivity between the rTPJ and reward-related regions, including the striatum and substantia nigra, was higher in the competition with familiar friends than with unfamiliar others. Taken together with our behavioral findings, in which memories encoded by competing with familiar friends were remembered more accurately than those with unfamiliar others, the interacting mechanisms between the rTPJ that is involved in social motivation and the reward-related regions that are involved in social reward could contribute to the enhancement of memories encoded in the competition with familiar others.

Role of the first and second person perspective for control of behaviour: Understanding other people's facial expressions

Humans typically make probabilistic inferences about another person's affective state based on her/his bodily movements such as emotional facial expressions, emblematic gestures and whole body movements. Furthermore, humans deduce tentative predictions about the other person's intentions. Thus, the first person perspective of a subject is supplemented by the second person perspective involving theory of mind and empathy. Neuroimaging investigations have shown that the medial and lateral frontal cortex are critical nodes in the circuits underlying theory of mind, empathy, as well as intention of action. It is suggested that personal perspective taking in social interactions is paradigmatic for the capability of humans to generate probabilistic accounts of the outside world that underlie a person's control of behaviour.

Neural substrate of cognitive theory of mind impairment in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

We now know that amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is not restricted to the motor system. Indeed, a large proportion of patients with ALS exhibit cognitive impairment, especially executive dysfunction or language impairment. Although researchers have recently turned their attention to theory of mind (ToM) in ALS, only five studies have been performed so far, and they reported somewhat contradictory results. Moreover, the neural basis of the potential ToM deficit in ALS remains largely unknown. The present study was therefore designed to clarify whether a cognitive ToM deficit is indeed associated with ALS, specify the putative link between cognitive ToM deficits and executive dysfunction in ALS, and identify the dysfunctional brain regions responsible for any social cognition deficits. We investigated cognitive ToM and executive functions in a group of 23 patients with ALS and matched healthy controls, using an original false-belief task and a specially designed battery of executive tasks. We also performed an (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography examination. Results confirmed the presence of cognitive ToM deficits in patients compared with controls, and revealed significant correlations between ToM and executive functions, although the cognitive ToM deficit persisted when a composite executive function score was entered as a covariate. Using statistical parametric mapping, we calculated positive correlations between tracer uptake and false-belief scores on a voxel-by-voxel basis in the patient sample. Results showed that the cognitive ToM deficit correlated with the dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, as well as the supplementary motor area. Our findings provide compelling clinical and imaging evidence for the presence of a genuine cognitive ToM deficit in patients with ALS.

Modulating functional and dysfunctional mentalizing by transcranial magnetic stimulation

Mentalizing, the ability to attribute mental states to others and oneself, is a cognitive function with high relevance for social interactions. Recent neuroscientific research has increasingly contributed to attempts to decompose this complex social cognitive function into constituting neurocognitive building blocks. Additionally, clinical research that focuses on social cognition to find links between impaired social functioning and neurophysiological deviations has accumulated evidence that mentalizing is affected in most psychiatric disorders. Recently, both lines of research have started to employ transcranial magnetic stimulation: the first to modulate mentalizing in order to specify its neurocognitive components, the latter to treat impaired mentalizing in clinical conditions. This review integrates findings of these two different approaches to draw a more detailed picture of the neurocognitive basis of mentalizing and its deviations in psychiatric disorders. Moreover, we evaluate the effectiveness of hitherto employed stimulation techniques and protocols, paradigms and outcome measures. Based on this overview we highlight new directions for future research on the neurocognitive basis of functional and dysfunctional social cognition.