Social NeurosciencePub Date : 2022-10-01Epub Date: 2022-10-30DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2022.2138536
Karolina Golec-Staśkiewicz, Agnieszka Pluta, Jakub Wojciechowski, Łukasz Okruszek, Maciej Haman, Joanna Wysocka, Tomasz Wolak
{"title":"Does the TPJ fit it all? Representational similarity analysis of different forms of mentalizing.","authors":"Karolina Golec-Staśkiewicz, Agnieszka Pluta, Jakub Wojciechowski, Łukasz Okruszek, Maciej Haman, Joanna Wysocka, Tomasz Wolak","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2022.2138536","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2022.2138536","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mentalizing is the key socio-cognitive ability. Its heterogeneous structure may result from a variety of forms of mental state inference, which may be based on lower-level processing of cues encoded in the observable behavior of others, or rather involve higher-level computations aimed at understanding another person's perspective. Here we aimed to investigate the representational content of the brain regions engaged in mentalizing. To this end, 61 healthy adults took part in an fMRI study. We explored ROI activity patterns associated with five well-recognized ToM tasks that induce either decoding of mental states from motion kinematics or belief-reasoning. By using multivariate representational similarity analysis, we examined whether these examples of lower- and higher-level forms of social inference induced common or distinct patterns of brain activity. Distinct patterns of brain activity related to decoding of mental states from motion kinematics and belief-reasoning were found in lTPJp and the left IFG, but not the rTPJp. This may indicate that rTPJp supports a general mechanism for the representation of mental states. The divergent patterns of activation in lTPJp and frontal areas likely reflect differences in the degree of involvement of cognitive functions which support the basic mentalizing processes engaged by the two task groups.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"428-440"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40456600","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 : 2022-08-01Epub Date: 2022-08-19DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2022.2112753
Ekaterina D Karimova, Alena S Gulyaeva, Nikita S Katermin
{"title":"The degree of mu rhythm suppression in women is associated with presence of children as well as empathy and anxiety level.","authors":"Ekaterina D Karimova, Alena S Gulyaeva, Nikita S Katermin","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2022.2112753","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2022.2112753","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In experiments on observing and performing social gestures, the level of mu rhythm suppression is associated with the activity of the mirror neuron system (MNS), which is responsible for the perception and understanding of nonverbal signals in social communication. In turn, while MNS activity may be associated primarily with empathy, it is also associated with other psychological and demographic factors affecting the effectiveness of cortical neural networks. In this study, we verified the influence of empathy, state and trait anxiety levels, presence and number of children, and age on the mu-suppression level in 40 women. We used 32-channel EEG recorded during observation, and synchronous execution of various hand movements. The ICA infomax method was used for decomposing and selecting the left hemisphere component of the mu-rhythm. Mu-suppression was higher in women with one child, with higher levels of empathy, and with lower anxiety levels. It is possible that MNS activity is stronger in women during parental care.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"382-396"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40602017","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 : 2022-08-01Epub Date: 2022-07-04DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2022.2095018
Shannon A H Compton, Mary Ritchie, Lindsay Oliver, Elizabeth Finger, Derek G V Mitchell
{"title":"Dissociable effects of acute versus cumulative violent video game exposure on the action simulation circuit in university students.","authors":"Shannon A H Compton, Mary Ritchie, Lindsay Oliver, Elizabeth Finger, Derek G V Mitchell","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2022.2095018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2022.2095018","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There is an ongoing debate as to whether violent video game exposure (VGE) has a negative impact on social functioning. This debate continues in part because of methodological concerns and the paucity of identifiable neurocognitive mechanisms. Also, little attention has been given to how specific personality characteristics may influence susceptibility to the purported effects. Using a combined experimental and cross-sectional approach, we examined the impact of VGE on action simulation as a function of trait coldheartedness in a sample of university students. Healthy adults played a violent or nonviolent version of <i>Grand Theft Auto V</i> before completing an fMRI measure of action simulation circuit (ASC) activity. Simulation-related activity was not significantly different between groups; however, greater overall activation was observed in left inferior frontal gyrus for those in the violent condition. Contrary to predictions, no evidence was observed that trait coldheartedness significantly interacts with violent gaming to influence ASC activation. However, prior cumulative VGE was negatively correlated with simulation-related activity in a subsection of the ASC. This study highlights a potential dissociation between the effects of acute versus cumulative violent gaming and may challenge assumptions that the directionality of effects for cross-sectional associations always mirror those of acute exposure.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"368-381"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40559992","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 : 2022-08-01Epub Date: 2022-07-05DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2022.2095019
Mirella Manfredi, Letícia Yumi Nakao Morello, Lucas M Marques, Paulo S Boggio
{"title":"When humor is a matter of heart: Effects on emotional state and interbeat interval.","authors":"Mirella Manfredi, Letícia Yumi Nakao Morello, Lucas M Marques, Paulo S Boggio","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2022.2095019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2022.2095019","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Previous studies demonstrated that exposure to humor has beneficial effects on psychological well-being. In the present work, we investigated the behavioral and psychophysiological effects of different types of humor on psychological well-being and on the performance during the execution of a stressful cognitive task. To this aim, we examined the behavioral and psychophysiological effects of ToM humorous and Slapstick humorous comic strips before and after executing a stressful cognitive task. We hypothesized that only slapstick humor could reduce the level of anxiety, increase positive affect and improve performance on the cognitive task. Our findings revealed that, at a specific point in time, exposure to ToM Humor and No Humor strips were associated with lower IBI (higher HR, increase in cardiac recruitment) than slapstick humor. This result suggests that humor involving ToM abilities and No Humor strips elicited a greater cognitive engagement level than slapstick humor. Moreover, in an exploratory analysis we found a positive correlation between cardiac deactivation during the exposure to slapstick Humor and individual empathy scores, suggesting that the empathy skills might influence cardiac recruitment and the level of cognitive engagement during the exposure to humorous material.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"329-338"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40404491","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}
Emily N Lasko, Abigale C Dagher, Samuel J West, David S Chester
{"title":"Neural mechanisms of intergroup exclusion and retaliatory aggression.","authors":"Emily N Lasko, Abigale C Dagher, Samuel J West, David S Chester","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2022.2086617","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2022.2086617","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Aggression occurs frequently and severely between rival groups. Although there has been much study into the psychological and socio-ecological determinants of intergroup aggression, the neuroscience of this phenomenon remains incomplete. To examine the neural correlates of aggression directed at outgroup (versus ingroup) targets, we recruited 35 healthy young male participants who were current or former students of the same university. While undergoing functional MRI, participants completed an aggression task against both an ingroup and an outgroup opponent in which their opponents repeatedly provoked them at varying levels and then participants could retaliate. Participants were then socially included and then excluded by two outgroup members and then completed the same aggression task against the same two opponents. Both before and after outgroup exclusion, aggression toward outgroup members was positively associated with activity in the ventral striatum during decisions about how aggressive to be toward their outgroup opponent. Aggression toward outgroup members was also linked to greater post-exclusion activity in the rostral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex during provocation from their outgroup opponent. These altered patterns of brain activity suggest that frontostriatal mechanisms may play a significant role in motivating aggression toward outgroup members.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":"17 4","pages":"339-351"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9489608/pdf/nihms-1814008.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9916697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Theresa A. McIver, W. Craig, R. Bosma, Julian Chiarella, J. Klassen, A. Sandre, S. Goegan, L. Booij
{"title":"Empathy, defending, and functional connectivity while witnessing social exclusion","authors":"Theresa A. McIver, W. Craig, R. Bosma, Julian Chiarella, J. Klassen, A. Sandre, S. Goegan, L. Booij","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2022.2086618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2022.2086618","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Peers are present for most bullying episodes. Peers who witness bullying can play an important role in either stopping or perpetuating the behavior. Defending can greatly benefit victimized peers. Empathy is strongly associated with defending. Yet, less is known about defenders’ neural response to witnessing social distress, and how this response may relate to the link between empathy and defending. Forty-six first-year undergraduate students (M age = 17.7; 37 women), with varied history of peer defending, underwent fMRI scanning while witnessing a depiction of social exclusion. Functional connectivity analysis was performed across brain regions that are involved in cognitive empathy, empathetic distress, and compassion. History of defending was positively associated with functional connectivity (Exclusion > Inclusion) between the left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) – medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), and right OFC – left and right amygdalae. Defending was negatively associated with functional connectivity between the left OFC – anterior cingulate cortex. The relationship between history of defending and empathy (specifically, empathetic perspective taking) was moderated by functional connectivity of the right OFC – left amygdala. These findings suggest that coactivation of brain regions involved in compassionate emotion regulation and empathetic distress play a role in the relationship between empathy and peer defending.","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":"17 1","pages":"352 - 367"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47337347","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 : 2022-06-01Epub Date: 2022-06-07DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2022.2082521
Christian G Capistrano, Leah A Grande, Kateri McRae, K Luan Phan, Pilyoung Kim
{"title":"Maternal socioeconomic disadvantage, neural function during volitional emotion regulation, and parenting.","authors":"Christian G Capistrano, Leah A Grande, Kateri McRae, K Luan Phan, Pilyoung Kim","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2022.2082521","DOIUrl":"10.1080/17470919.2022.2082521","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The transition to becoming a mother involves numerous emotional challenges, and the ability to effectively keep negative emotions in check is critical for parenting. Evidence suggests that experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage interferes with parenting adaptations and alters neural processes related to emotion regulation. The present study examined whether socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with diminished neural activation while mothers engaged in volitional (i.e., purposeful) emotion regulation. 59 mothers, at an average of 4 months postpartum, underwent fMRI scanning and completed the Emotion Regulation Task (ERT). When asked to regulate emotions using reappraisal (i.e., Reappraise condition; reframing stimuli in order to decrease negative emotion), mothers with lower income-to-needs ratio exhibited dampened neural activation in the dorsolateral and ventrolateral PFC, middle frontal and middle temporal gyrus, and caudate. Without explicit instructions to down-regulate (i.e., Maintain condition), mothers experiencing lower income also exhibited dampened response in regulatory areas, including the middle frontal and middle temporal gyrus and caudate. Blunted middle frontal gyrus activation across both Reappraise and Maintain conditions was associated with reduced maternal sensitivity during a mother-child interaction task. Results of the present study demonstrate the influence of socioeconomic disadvantage on prefrontal engagement during emotion regulation, which may have downstream consequences for maternal behaviors.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":"17 1","pages":"276-292"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10829500/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47920262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Social NeurosciencePub Date : 2022-06-01Epub Date: 2022-06-20DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2022.2083230
Nathania Suryoputri, Hannah Kiesow, Danilo Bzdok
{"title":"Population variation in social brain morphology: Links to socioeconomic status and health disparity.","authors":"Nathania Suryoputri, Hannah Kiesow, Danilo Bzdok","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2022.2083230","DOIUrl":"10.1080/17470919.2022.2083230","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Health disparity across layers of society involves reasons beyond the healthcare system. Socioeconomic status (SES) shapes people's daily interaction with their social environment and is known to impact various health outcomes. Using generative probabilistic modeling, we investigate health satisfaction and complementary indicators of socioeconomic lifestyle in the human social brain. In a population cohort of ~10,000 UK Biobank participants, our first analysis probed the relationship between health status and subjective social standing (i.e., financial satisfaction). We identified volume effects in participants unhappy with their health in regions of the higher associative cortex, especially the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and bilateral temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). Specifically, participants in poor subjective health showed deviations in dmPFC and TPJ volume as a function of financial satisfaction. The second analysis on health status and objective social standing (i.e., household income) revealed volume deviations in regions of the limbic system for individuals feeling unhealthy. In particular, low-SES participants dissatisfied with their health showed deviations in volume distributions in the amygdala and hippocampus bilaterally. Thus, our population-level evidence speaks to the possibility that health status and socioeconomic position have characteristic imprints in social brain differentiation.</p>","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":"17 3","pages":"305-327"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9398728","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":"Neural network involvement for religious experiences in worship measured by EEG microstate analysis","authors":"Yoshija Walter, T. Koenig","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2022.2083228","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2022.2083228","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Not much is known about large-scale brain activation patterns in religious states of mind and previous studies have not set an emphasis on experience. The present study investigated the phenomenon of religious experiences through microstate analysis, and it was the first neurocognitive research to tackle the dimension of experience directly. Hence, a total of 60 evangelical Christians participated in an experiment where they were asked to engage in worship and try to connect with God. With a bar slider, people were able to continuously rate how strongly they sensed God’s presence at any given moment. A selection of songs was used to help in the induction of the desired experience. With 64 electroencephalography (EEG) electrodes, the brain activity was assessed and analyzed with five clusters of microstate classes. First, we hypothesized that the neural network for multisensory integration was involved in the religious experience. Second, we hypothesized that the same was true for the Default Mode Network (DMN). Our results suggested an association between the auditory network and the religious experience, and an association with the salience network as well as with the DMN. No associations with the network thought to be involved with multisensory integration was detected.","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":"17 1","pages":"258 - 275"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48316215","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":"The role of contextual information in a virtual trolly problem: A psychophysiological investigation","authors":"Matthew T. Richesin, D. Baldwin, Lahai A M Wicks","doi":"10.1080/17470919.2022.2076733","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2022.2076733","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Trolley problems have persisted as a popular method to examine moral decision-making in the face of many criticisms. One such criticism is that thought experiments provide unrealistically abundant contextual information, leading to mental simulation. Recent work utilizing virtual reality technology has reduced contextual information with mixed results. However, this work has not departed entirely from the thought experiment tradition, often providing written or verbal descriptions of the trolley problem before or during the simulation. This approach may still allow for mental simulation prior to decision-making. The goal of the current study is to examine whether or not this criticism is relevant for the classic version of the trolley problem. One hundred and nineteen participants were randomly assigned to either receive prior contextual information about the trolley problem or receive no information. All participants then entered a virtual reality simulation of the classic trolley problem. We examined decision-making from an affective and autonomic nervous system perspective. We found no effect on any measure in response to the reduction of contextual information. There were, however, surprising gender differences in decision-making and autonomic response. Further, we discuss how these findings relate to competing dual-process models of moral decision-making.","PeriodicalId":49511,"journal":{"name":"Social Neuroscience","volume":"17 1","pages":"246 - 257"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42549649","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}