Marcelina Wiśniewska, Aleksandra Piejka, Tomasz Wolak, Dirk Scheele, Łukasz Okruszek
{"title":"Loneliness - not for the faint of heart? Effects of transient loneliness induction on neural and parasympathetic responses to affective stimuli.","authors":"Marcelina Wiśniewska, Aleksandra Piejka, Tomasz Wolak, Dirk Scheele, Łukasz Okruszek","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2025.2498384","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2025.2498384","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>While loneliness has been associated with altered neural activity in social brain networks and reduced heart rate variability (HRV) in response to social stressors, it is still unclear whether these are related or parallel effects. Thus, the current study aimed to examine the relationship between loneliness and neural and parasympathetic responses to social stimuli by using an experimental induction of momentary loneliness. Sixty-three participants (18-35 y.o.) received manipulated feedback about their future relationships to induce either loneliness (Future Alone, FA; <i>n</i> = 31) or feelings of belonging (Future Belong, FB, <i>n</i> = 32) and completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging session with concomitant HRV measurement during which affective pictures with social or nonsocial content were presented. In line with our previous research, decreased vagal flexibility and more negative affect were observed in participants subjected to the loneliness induction. Furthermore, even though no significant between-group differences in neural activity were observed, the neural response to negative social vs nonsocial stimuli in the temporoparietal junction was positively associated with the parasympathetic response, and this relationship was stronger in the FA group. Taken together, these results suggest that transient feelings of loneliness may disrupt adaptive responding to environmental demands and negatively impact brain-heart interactions.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144059067","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Matthias Schurz, Matthias G Tholen, Martin Kronbichler, Josef Perner, Andrew D R Surtees
{"title":"Comparing level 1 and level 2 visuo-spatial perspective-taking in the brain: evidence from fMRI.","authors":"Matthias Schurz, Matthias G Tholen, Martin Kronbichler, Josef Perner, Andrew D R Surtees","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2025.2490574","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2025.2490574","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Level 1 visuo-spatial perspective-taking (VSPT) refers to judging what other people can and cannot see. Previous research has suggested that this form of VSPT can be achieved relatively effortlessly. Level 2 VSPT, which refers to judgments about how an object appears from different viewpoints, is conceptually more complex and linked to higher-level social cognition and mentalizing. Despite growing neuroscientific evidence on VSPT, fMRI studies have not yet directly compared levels of perspective-taking. Study 1 collected fMRI data from a within-subject comparison of level 2 versus level 1 VSPT. We used a common activation contrast comparing inconsistent versus consistent perspectives between self and others. In Study 2, we further distinguished the brain regions associated with level 2 VSPT from those responsive to stimulus ambiguity and complexity. To achieve this, we asked participants to adopt different viewpoints on ambiguous and unambiguous stimuli. Results from both studies found that brain activation for level 2 VSPT was particularly high in areas of the dorsal attention network. Follow-up connectivity analysis found that level 2 VSPT is primarily carried out by the dorsal attention and the frontoparietal network. These results align with theories suggesting that VSPT can be achieved by engaging visuospatial attention and inhibitory control processes.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"1-19"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144058866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Min Tan, Mei Li, Xi Luo, Guanfei Zhang, Yiping Zhong
{"title":"The influence of empathic concern on evaluative processing in self and charity outcomes.","authors":"Min Tan, Mei Li, Xi Luo, Guanfei Zhang, Yiping Zhong","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2025.2493871","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2025.2493871","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Empathy plays a crucial role in determining how one understands others' emotional experiences and behavioral decisions. This study aimed to explore whether empathic concern affects the processing of self-related and charity-related outcome evaluations. In this study, participants performed gambling tasks for themselves and low- and high-empathy charities. The behavioral results showed that low-empathy charities had a significantly higher risk rate than the self, whereas there was no significant difference between low-and high-empathy charities. The event-related potential (ERP) results showed that the P300 valence difference (d-P300) of the self was significantly higher for high-empathy charitable activities than for low-empathy charitable activities, and the d-P300 of high-empathy charitable activities was significantly higher than that of low-empathy charitable activities. The P300 valence differences primarily originated from activation difference in the posterior mid-cingulate cortex (pMCC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). The time-frequency analysis showed that positive outcomes induced greater β2 event-related desynchronization (ERD) amplitudes for high-empathy charitable activities compared to negative outcomes. These findings suggest that empathic concern increased the distinction between good and bad outcomes for charities and promoted greater cognitive effort allocation toward prosocial rewards. The d-P300 is closely linked to activations in the pMCC and mPFC.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144044482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Recognizing communicative intentions from single- and dyadic point light displays in autistic adults.","authors":"Małgorzata Krawczyk, Amy Pinkham, Karolina Golec-Staśkiewicz, Joanna Wysocka, Łukasz Okruszek","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2025.2491676","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2025.2491676","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The present study compares the ability of non-autistic (NA) and autistic adults (ASD) with intellectual functioning in the normal range to process communicative intentions from biological motion (BM) - a capacity often considered as a prerequisite for a higher-order social cognition (SC). Twenty-nine ASD and 29 NA completed two tasks assessing the ability to recognize the communicative cues presented by either one or two point-light agents, as well as one point-light emotion recognition task and additional measures of SC abilities. Autistic participants demonstrated a decreased ability to recognize communicative intentions from BM (<i>p</i> = 0.02 for dyadic and <i><u>p</u></i> = 0.03 for single agent task) despite similar levels of neurocognitive and social cognitive functioning. Additional exploratory analyses revealed an indirect trajectory linking the capacity to recognize communication from BM with autism symptoms through social cognitive capacity. Autistic adults may experience difficulties in processing communicative intentions, even in the absence of detectable higher-order SC problems. A possible mechanism might be the engagement in compensatory strategies that are inadequate for detecting lower-order intuitive social cues. Therefore, including tasks that assess the ability to detect communicative cues from BM may be beneficial for autistic adults with high cognitive abilities, in whom SC difficulties might be overlooked.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"1-13"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144054121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Social NeurosciencePub Date : 2025-02-01Epub Date: 2025-01-31DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2025.2457954
G Nathzidy Rivera-Urbina, María Fernanda Orozco-Roldán, Andrés Molero-Chamizo
{"title":"Executive functions in adolescence: A longitudinal study comparing evaluations before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.","authors":"G Nathzidy Rivera-Urbina, María Fernanda Orozco-Roldán, Andrés Molero-Chamizo","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2025.2457954","DOIUrl":"10.1080/17470919.2025.2457954","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The change in the educational model derived from the COVID-19 pandemic might have an impact on cognitive development, particularly on Executive Functions (EFs). The aim of this study was to explore cognitive performance in adolescents at two time points (12 and 14 years of age), before and after the pandemic restrictions. We also analyzed possible sex differences in the results. We evaluated EFs using the Neuropsychological Battery of Executive Functions and Frontal Lobes (BANFE-2), which includes four cognitive indices corresponding to specific cognitive functions and associated prefrontal areas: Orbitofrontal Cortex (OC index -OCI-), Anterior Prefrontal Cortex (APCI), Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DCI), and Prefrontal cortex as an index of global EFs (EFI). The ANOVA conducted to compare the evaluations before and after the pandemic revealed no significant pre-post-pandemic differences in any sex and in any BANFE-2 index, except for the OCI, in which post-pandemic performance was impaired in boys (pre and post mean score = 96.61 vs. 66.53), but not in girls (pre and post mean score = 93.55 vs. 95.0). Our findings are thus compatible with the idea of a different vulnerability to change in the educational model between sexes, and they also reveal which specific EFs may have been affected during the pandemic.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"16-24"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143076230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Social NeurosciencePub Date : 2025-02-01Epub Date: 2025-03-09DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2025.2474401
Sebastian Scholz, Johanna Kissler
{"title":"Hemispheric alpha asymmetry differentiates within-participants social power states: high social power increases and low social power decreases left frontal cortical activity.","authors":"Sebastian Scholz, Johanna Kissler","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2025.2474401","DOIUrl":"10.1080/17470919.2025.2474401","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social power is linked to approach and withdrawal motivational systems, with frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) in the electroencephalogram (EEG) potentially reflecting these tendencies. Higher left-frontal activity suggests approach, while lower levels indicate withdrawal. In this study, we used a novel within-subject design to explore how social power affects FAA. Twenty-five participants completed an episodic recall task inducing high or low social power, or a neutral condition, in random order. EEG alpha power (8-12 hz) was measured to calculate FAA indices for frontal and parietal-occipital regions and compared to resting-state asymmetry. Results showed a significant increase in left-hemispheric activity during high social power recall, affecting both frontal and non-frontal regions, compared to low power and control conditions. Low social power was associated with the least left hemispheric activity. These findings highlight strong effects of social power on brain systems related to approach and avoidance but challenge the notion that FAA is confined to frontal regions. The study enhances understanding of the neural mechanisms behind social power and underscores the value of within-subject designs and baseline measurements in studying neural activity related alpha asymmetry and social power.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"25-36"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143587862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Social NeurosciencePub Date : 2025-02-01Epub Date: 2025-01-25DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2025.2454257
Ye-Jin Kim, Young-A Lee
{"title":"Social group size alters social behavior and dopaminergic and serotonergic systems.","authors":"Ye-Jin Kim, Young-A Lee","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2025.2454257","DOIUrl":"10.1080/17470919.2025.2454257","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social behavior is affected by social structure type, but how neural function changes with social type remains unclear. We investigated whether social group size affects social behaviors based on dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5-HT) systems. Four-week-old male mice were housed under different social group sizes: one, two, four, and eight mice per cage (1mpc, 2mpc, 4mpc, 8mpc, respectively). After 4 weeks, social preference, social interaction, and forced swim tests were performed to test sociability and anxiety, respectively, followed by analysis of DA and 5-HT and their metabolites (3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid [DOPAC], 3-methoxytyramine [3-MT], norepinephrine, and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid [5-HIAA]). Social interactions and anxious behavior decreased with increased social group size. DA, 3-MT, and 5-HT levels decreased with increasing social group size, whereas DOPAC and 5-HIAA levels increased in the extended mesocorticolimbic system, including the dorsal striatum. Moreover, the increased social group size resulted in increased DOPAC/DA and 5-HIAA/5-HT ratios, accompanied by a decrease in the 3-MT/DA ratio within the extended mesocorticolimbic system. Linear regression analysis also revealed that social group size affects DA and 5-HT turnover. These suggest that social group size may influence behavior and monoamine levels, potentially contributing to DA- and 5-HT-related psychiatric disorders.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143042968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Social NeurosciencePub Date : 2025-02-01Epub Date: 2025-03-09DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2025.2474410
Hadi Mohamadpour, Mahdieh Goudarzi, Abdol-Hossein Vahabie, Soomaayeh Heysieattalab
{"title":"The role of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in social decision-making against high- and low-rank opponents: a transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) study.","authors":"Hadi Mohamadpour, Mahdieh Goudarzi, Abdol-Hossein Vahabie, Soomaayeh Heysieattalab","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2025.2474410","DOIUrl":"10.1080/17470919.2025.2474410","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social hierarchy is a key determinant of behavior and individuals interact with others based on their social rank. Previous research has emphasized the role of the mPFC in learning social hierarchies. This study employed a social rank learning task alongside a modified version of the Ultimatum Game (UG) to investigate how individuals respond to monetary offers from different social ranks and whether the mPFC modulates these reactions. Our findings indicate that unfair offers are more likely to be rejected and offers made by individuals of lower social rank are more likely to be rejected compared to those from higher social rank. Additionally, men tend to respond quicker than women in the UG. Remarkably, participants who received tDCS over the mPFC demonstrated higher rejection rates and faster response times for offers of low-rank individuals, while the lower rejection rates and slower responses to offers from high-rank opponents. These results shed light on the neural mechanisms involved in social decision-making in competitive contexts. In particular, they reveal increased sensitivity of the mPFC to social ranks after electrical stimulation, which might be an evidence for its role in shaping decisions and reactions toward unfairness within the existing social hierarchies.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"37-52"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143587864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jan Szczypiński, Karolina Golec-Staśkiewicz, Agnieszka Pluta, Artur Marchewka
{"title":"How does teaching experience impact brain processes underlying the theory of mind? Study on primary school educators.","authors":"Jan Szczypiński, Karolina Golec-Staśkiewicz, Agnieszka Pluta, Artur Marchewka","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2024.2437404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2024.2437404","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Despite its importance for daily social interactions, few studies have explored interindividual differences in the Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities of healthy adults. We used Children's False-Attribution (CFA), Children's False-Beliefs (CFB), and Belief-Desire Reasoning tasks, along with fMRI-based assessments, in a comparative analysis of ToM among primary school teachers (PST; <i>n</i> = 27), skilled in social interactions with children, and matched controls (MC; <i>n</i> = 24), who lacked such experience. PST demonstrated slower reaction times than MC in Adult and Child false-belief stories of CFB. However, no other behavioral differences between the groups and between-group differences were observed at the brain level. Both groups presented similar valence ratings for stories in the CFA. Notably, fMRI analysis revealed a group-by-condition interaction effect in the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). In PSTs, OFC activation decreased during negative false-attribution stories regarding children compared to stories related to adults, whereas MC demonstrated an opposite activation pattern. Between-group differences in right lateral OFC activity possibly signify a neural efficiency effect secondary to frequent social interactions of PSTs, unlike the MCs, with children in the working environment. These results underscore the significance of everyday social experiences in the functional plasticity of ToM networks.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"1-19"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142786379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Aitana Grasso-Cladera, Stefanella Costa-Cordella, Josefina Mattoli-Sánchez, Erich Vilina, Valentina Santander, Shari E Hiltner, Francisco J Parada
{"title":"<i>Embodied hyperscanning</i> for studying social interaction: A scoping review of simultaneous brain and body measurements.","authors":"Aitana Grasso-Cladera, Stefanella Costa-Cordella, Josefina Mattoli-Sánchez, Erich Vilina, Valentina Santander, Shari E Hiltner, Francisco J Parada","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2024.2409758","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2024.2409758","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We systematically investigated the application of embodied hyperscanning methodologies in social neuroscience research. Hyperscanning enables the simultaneous recording of neurophysiological and physiological signals from multiple participants. We highlight the trend toward integrating Mobile Brain/Body Imaging (MoBI) within the 4E research framework, which emphasizes the interconnectedness of brain, body, and environment. Our analysis revealed a geographic concentration of studies in the Global North, calling for global collaboration and transcultural research to balance the field. The predominant use of Magneto/Electroencephalogram (M/EEG) in these studies suggests a traditional brain-centric perspective in social neuroscience. Future research directions should focus on integrating diverse techniques to capture the dynamic interplay between brain and body functions in real-world contexts. Our review also finds a preference for tasks involving natural settings. Nevertheless, the analysis in hyperscanning studies is often limited to physiological signal synchrony between participants. This suggests a need for more holistic and complex approaches that combine inter-corporeal synchrony with intra-individual measures. We believe that the future of the neuroscience of relationships lies in embracing the complexity of cognition, integrating diverse methods and theories to enrich our grasp of human social behavior in its natural contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"1-17"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142478954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}