The Ageing Brain in Context
Successful interpersonal functioning relies upon the dynamic interplay of several complex cognitive and socio-emotional processes, enabling us to anticipate, predict, and respond appropriately to the behaviour of others. While significant attention has been paid to the emergence of these functions in childhood, comparatively less research has addressed how social cognition continues to evolve and change across the lifespan. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of how changes in social cognition arise as a natural consequence of healthy ageing, with important implications for how we construct and assess these processes in older adults. It then considers how degeneration of large-scale brain networks specialized for socio-emotional processing disrupts interpersonal functioning in dementia syndromes, and the mechanisms driving such impairments. In doing so, we aim to provide an empirically grounded road map to understand the dynamic nature of social cognitive function across the lifespan with a view to promoting resilience and well-being in later years.