Social by Default: Characterizing the Social Functions of the Resting Brain

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 380-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan L. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Default Network ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
The Social

Social-neuroscience research has identified a set of medial frontoparietal brain regions that reliably engage during social cognition. At the same time, cognitive-neuroscience research has shown that these regions comprise part of the default network, so named because they reliably activate during mental breaks by default. Although the anatomical similarity between the social brain and the default brain is well documented, why this overlap exists remains a mystery. Does the tendency to engage these regions by default during rest have particular social functions, and if so, what might these be? Here, it is suggested that the default network performs two critical social functions during rest: social priming and social consolidation. These constructs will be defined, recently published empirical findings that support them will be reviewed, and directions for future research on the topic will be proposed.

The Social Neuroscience of Cooperation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Joseph Van Bavel
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Review Literature ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Future Research ◽  
A Value ◽  
Group Cooperation ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cooperative Decision Making

We review literature from several fields to describe common experimental tasks used to measure human cooperation as well as the theoretical models that have been used to characterize cooperative decision-making, as well as brain regions implicated in cooperation. Building on work in neuroeconomics, we suggest a value-based account may provide the most powerful understanding the psychology and neuroscience of group cooperation. We also review the role of individual differences and social context in shaping the mental processes that underlie cooperation and consider gaps in the literature and potential directions for future research on the social neuroscience of cooperation. We suggest that this multi-level approach provides a more comprehensive understanding of the mental and neural processes that underlie the decision to cooperate with others.

scholarly journals The social brain in female autism: a structural imaging study of twins

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-436
Author(s):  
Élodie Cauvet ◽  
Annelies van’t Westeinde ◽  
Roberto Toro ◽  
Ralf Kuja-Halkola ◽  
Janina Neufeld ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Brain Structure ◽  
Imaging Study ◽  
Autistic Traits ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Twin Design ◽  
The Social

Abstract A female advantage in social cognition (SoC) might contribute to women’s underrepresentation in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The latter could be underpinned by sex differences in social brain structure. This study investigated the relationship between structural social brain networks and SoC in females and males in relation to ASD and autistic traits in twins. We used a co-twin design in 77 twin pairs (39 female) aged 12.5 to 31.0 years. Twin pairs were discordant or concordant for ASD or autistic traits, discordant or concordant for other neurodevelopmental disorders or concordant for neurotypical development. They underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging and were assessed for SoC using the naturalistic Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition. Autistic traits predicted reduced SoC capacities predominantly in male twins, despite a comparable extent of autistic traits in each sex, although the association between SoC and autistic traits did not differ significantly between the sexes. Consistently, within-pair associations between SoC and social brain structure revealed that lower SoC ability was associated with increased cortical thickness of several brain regions, particularly in males. Our findings confirm the notion that sex differences in SoC in association with ASD are underpinned by sex differences in brain structure.

scholarly journals What does the interactive brain hypothesis mean for social neuroscience? A dialogue

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1693) ◽  
pp. 20150379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanne De Jaegher ◽  
Ezequiel Di Paolo ◽  
Ralph Adolphs
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Dynamical Systems ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Directions ◽  
The Brain ◽  
And Robotics

A recent framework inspired by phenomenological philosophy, dynamical systems theory, embodied cognition and robotics has proposed the interactive brain hypothesis (IBH). Whereas mainstream social neuroscience views social cognition as arising solely from events in the brain, the IBH argues that social cognition requires, in addition, causal relations between the brain and the social environment. We discuss, in turn, the foundational claims for the IBH in its strongest form; classical views of cognition that can be raised against the IBH; a defence of the IBH in the light of these arguments; and a response to this. Our goal is to initiate a dialogue between cognitive neuroscience and enactive views of social cognition. We conclude by suggesting some new directions and emphases that social neuroscience might take.

The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Young
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Operational Models ◽  
The Brain

ArgumentNeuroscience research has created multiple versions of the human brain. The “social brain” is one version and it is the subject of this paper. Most image-based research in the field of social neuroscience is task-driven: the brain is asked to respond to a cognitive (perceptual) stimulus. The tasks are derived from theories, operational models, and back-stories now circulating in social neuroscience. The social brain comes with a distinctive back-story, an evolutionary history organized around three, interconnected themes: mind-reading, empathy, and the emergence of self-consciousness. This paper focuses on how empathy has been incorporated into the social brain and redefined via parallel research streams, employing a shared, imaging technology. The concluding section describes how these developments can be understood as signaling the emergence of a new version of human nature and the unconscious. My argument is not that empathy in the social brain is a myth, but rather that it is served by a myth consonant with the canons of science.

The Social Brain

2017 ◽  
pp. 277-293
Author(s):  
Riitta Hari ◽  
Aina Puce
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Action Observation ◽  
Dynamic Environment ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
The Social

This chapter discusses MEG and EEG studies of social cognition and interaction. Our understanding in this field mainly derives from experiments using isolated verbal and visual social stimuli in highly controlled laboratory environments. However, normal social interaction occurs in a complex dynamic environment where behavior must be adapted and synchronized with partners. Consequently, set-ups have been developed to study brain functions during naturalistic interactions, even “hyperscanning” two brains at the same time in settings of two-person neuroscience, based on knowledge acquired in previous well-controlled laboratory studies where the participants were in a spectator role. This chapter discusses past studies of social cognition, action observation, mirroring, interaction, and emotional processing, and examines how future studies of social neuroscience might be conducted.

scholarly journals Social neuroscience in psychiatry: unravelling the neural mechanisms of social dysfunction

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 1145-1165 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.-K. J. Fett ◽  
S. S. Shergill ◽  
L. Krabbendam
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Psychiatric Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Psychiatric Illnesses ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Neuroscience Research

Social neuroscience is a flourishing, interdisciplinary field that investigates the underlying biological processes of social cognition and behaviour. The recent application of social neuroscience to psychiatric research advances our understanding of various psychiatric illnesses that are characterized by impairments in social cognition and social functioning. In addition, the upcoming line of social neuroscience research provides new techniques to design and evaluate treatment interventions that are aimed at improving patients’ social lives. This review provides a contemporary overview of social neuroscience in psychiatry. We draw together the major findings about the neural mechanisms of social cognitive processes directed at understanding others and social interactions in psychiatric illnesses and discuss their implications for future research and clinical practice.

scholarly journals Metacognition: ideas and insights from neuro- and educational sciences

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Damien S. Fleur ◽  
Bert Bredeweg ◽  
Wouter van den Bos
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Metacognitive Knowledge ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Metacognitive Control ◽  
Domain Generality ◽  
Entry Points ◽  
Control Research ◽  
Educational Sciences

AbstractMetacognition comprises both the ability to be aware of one’s cognitive processes (metacognitive knowledge) and to regulate them (metacognitive control). Research in educational sciences has amassed a large body of evidence on the importance of metacognition in learning and academic achievement. More recently, metacognition has been studied from experimental and cognitive neuroscience perspectives. This research has started to identify brain regions that encode metacognitive processes. However, the educational and neuroscience disciplines have largely developed separately with little exchange and communication. In this article, we review the literature on metacognition in educational and cognitive neuroscience and identify entry points for synthesis. We argue that to improve our understanding of metacognition, future research needs to (i) investigate the degree to which different protocols relate to the similar or different metacognitive constructs and processes, (ii) implement experiments to identify neural substrates necessary for metacognition based on protocols used in educational sciences, (iii) study the effects of training metacognitive knowledge in the brain, and (iv) perform developmental research in the metacognitive brain and compare it with the existing developmental literature from educational sciences regarding the domain-generality of metacognition.

scholarly journals Social exclusion increases the executive function of attention networks

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Huoyin Zhang ◽  
Shiyunmeng Zhang ◽  
Jiachen Lu ◽  
Yi Lei ◽  
Hong Li
Keyword(s):  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Attention Network ◽  
Attention Networks ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Control

AbstractPrevious studies in humans have shown that brain regions activating social exclusion overlap with those related to attention. However, in the context of social exclusion, how does behavioral monitoring affect individual behavior? In this study, we used the Cyberball game to induce the social exclusion effect in a group of participants. To explore the influence of social exclusion on the attention network, we administered the Attention Network Test (ANT) and compared results for the three subsystems of the attention network (orienting, alerting, and executive control) between exclusion (N = 60) and inclusion (N = 60) groups. Compared with the inclusion group, the exclusion group showed shorter overall response time and better executive control performance, but no significant differences in orienting or alerting. The excluded individuals showed a stronger ability to detect and control conflicts. It appears that social exclusion does not always exert a negative influence on individuals. In future research, attention to network can be used as indicators of social exclusion. This may further reveal how social exclusion affects individuals' psychosomatic mechanisms.

The Default Network Distinguishes Construals of Proximal versus Distal Events

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 2945-2955 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana I. Tamir ◽  
Jason P. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Retrosplenial Cortex ◽  
Default Network ◽  
Implicit Measure ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
Different Dimensions

Humans enjoy a singular capacity to imagine events that differ from the “here-and-now.” Recent cognitive neuroscience research has linked such simulation processes to the brain's “default network.” However, extant cognitive theories suggest that perceivers reliably simulate only relatively proximal experiences—those that seem nearby, soon, likely to happen, or relevant to a close other. Here, we test these claims by examining spontaneous engagement of the default network while perceivers consider experiencing events from proximal and distal perspectives. Across manipulations of perspective in four dimensions, two regions of the default network—medial prefrontal cortex and retrosplenial cortex—were more active for proximal than distal events, supporting cognitive accounts that perceivers only richly simulate experiences that seem immediate and that perceivers represent different dimensions of distance similarly. Moreover, stable individual differences in default activity when thinking about distal events correlated with individual variability in an implicit measure of psychological distance, suggesting that perceivers naturally vary in their tendency to simulate far-off or unlikely experiences.

scholarly journals A Social Neuroscience Approach to Interpersonal Interaction in the Context of Disruption and Disorganization of Attachment (NAMDA)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars White ◽  
Charlotte Catharina Schulz ◽  
Margerete Schött ◽  
Melanie Kungl ◽  
Jan Keil ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Neural Structure ◽  
Internal Working ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Attachment Disruption

Humans are strongly dependent upon social resources for allostasis and emotion regulation. This applies especially to early childhood because humans – as an altricial species – have a prolonged period of dependency on support and input from caregivers who typically act as sources of co-regulation. Accordingly, attachment theory proposes that the history and quality of early interactions with primary caregivers shape children’s internal working models of attachment. In turn, these attachment models guide behavior, initially with the set goal of maintaining proximity to caregivers, but eventually paving the way to more generalized mental representations of self and others. Mounting evidence in nonclinical populations suggests that these mental representations coincide with differential patterns of neural structure, function, and connectivity in a range of brain regions previously associated with emotional and cognitive capacities. What is currently lacking, however, is an evidence-based account of how early adverse attachment-related experiences and/or the emergence of attachment disorganization impact the developing brain. While work on early childhood adversities offers important insights, we propose that how these events become biologically embedded crucially hinges on the context of the child-caregiver attachment relationships in which the events take place. Our selective review distinguishes between direct social neuroscience research on disorganized attachment and indirect maltreatment-related research, converging on aberrant functioning in neurobiological systems subserving aversion, approach, emotion regulation, and mental state processing in the wake of severe attachment disruption. To account for heterogeneity of findings, we propose two distinct neurobiological phenotypes characterized by hyper- and hypo-arousal primarily deriving from the caregiver serving either as a threatening or as an insufficient source of co-regulation, respectively.

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