{"title":"Predicting whole-brain neural dynamics from prefrontal cortex functional near-infrared spectroscopy signal during movie-watching.","authors":"Shan Gao, Ryleigh Nash, Shannon Burns, Yuan Chang Leong","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf043","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf043","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) offers a portable, cost-effective alternative to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for noninvasively measuring neural activity. However, fNIRS measurements are limited to cortical regions near the scalp, missing important medial and deeper brain areas. We introduce a predictive model that maps prefrontal fNIRS signals to whole-brain fMRI activity during movie-watching. By aligning neural responses to a common audiovisual stimulus, our approach leverages shared dynamics across imaging modalities to map fNIRS signals to broader neural activity patterns. We scanned participants with fNIRS and utilized a publicly available fMRI dataset of participants watching the same TV episode. The model was trained on the first half of the episode and tested on a held-out participant watching the second half to assess cross-individual and cross-stimulus generalizability. The model significantly predicted fMRI time courses in 66 out of 122 brain regions, including areas otherwise inaccessible to fNIRS. It also replicated intersubject functional connectivity patterns and retained semantic information about the movie content. The model generalized to an independent dataset from a different TV series, suggesting it captures robust cross-modal mappings across stimuli. Our publicly available models enable researchers to infer broader neural dynamics from localized fNIRS data during naturalistic tasks.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12094161/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144031660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Simone G Shamay-Tsoory, Anna Markovich, Andrey Markus, Tali Bitan
{"title":"Interbrain coupling during language learning contributes to learning outcomes.","authors":"Simone G Shamay-Tsoory, Anna Markovich, Andrey Markus, Tali Bitan","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf045","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>While knowledge and skill acquisition frequently occur in social interactions, the predominant focus of existing research remains centred on individual learning. Here, we investigate whether social interaction enhances language learning, and whether interbrain coupling changes across learning sessions. We utilized functional near-infrared spectroscopy to assess teacher-learner dyads engaging in a two-session training on a set of words and their plural inflections in a novel language. We compared a group trained with mutual communication with a noninteractive group, in which the learner could see and hear the teacher, but the teacher was unable to see or hear the learner (one-way mirror). Results revealed that compared to the No-interaction group, the Interaction group exhibited faster reaction times for vocabulary recognition and morphological inflections for the first session. The neuroimaging data revealed that interbrain coupling between the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) of the learner and the right IFG of the teacher positively predicted vocabulary accuracy in the first but not in the second session. The results collectively suggest that IFG interbrain coupling plays an essential role in the initial stages of learning, highlighting the significant impact of social interaction in enhancing learning, especially during the early phases of learning.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144129980","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Peter E Clayson, Kipras Varkala, Scott A Baldwin, Patrick R Steffen, Jonathan G Sandberg, Michael J Larson
{"title":"Spouse Support and Stress: Gender Differences in Neural Measures of Performance Monitoring Under Observation of a Spouse.","authors":"Peter E Clayson, Kipras Varkala, Scott A Baldwin, Patrick R Steffen, Jonathan G Sandberg, Michael J Larson","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf053","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Spousal support can mitigate stress's impact on daily functioning and neural responses to stressors. However, the effectiveness of spousal support in reducing stress may be moderated by gender. The present study investigated the impact of observer presence in 66 heterosexual married couples, specifically a spouse or a confederate, on two neural indices of performance monitoring: early error detection (error-related negativity [ERN]) and later error awareness (error positivity [Pe]). Contrary to predictions, ERN was consistently smaller in observed conditions, suggesting that being observed, irrespective of the observer's identity, diminished attention to errors. Notably, only women exhibited an enhanced ERN in the presence of their spouse, suggesting gender-specific differences in neural responses to spousal support during performance monitoring. Pe was larger when completing the task in the presence of a spouse and men displayed larger Pe than women. The present findings underscore the complex role of social context in performance monitoring, challenging existing assumptions about the uniformity of neural indices of performance monitoring during observation. Findings emphasize the need to dissect the nuanced interplay between observer presence, gender differences, and performance monitoring and offer valuable insights into the social modulation of error processing, particularly in a stressful observation context.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144103458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Targeting the DLPFC to Enhance Memory Control: Divergent Effects on Social and Nonsocial Memories.","authors":"Hui Xie, Jialin Liang, Yun Luo, Weimao Chen, Xiaoqing Hu, Dandan Zhang","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf052","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Voluntary forgetting, governed by top-down inhibitory control in the prefrontal cortex, plays a critical role in adaptive memory regulation. This study investigated the causal role of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) in the forgetting of social and nonsocial memories. Employing high-frequency (10 Hz) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in an offline protocol, we modulated rDLPFC activity (Active TMS condition) and compared it to a Control TMS condition targeting the vertex. Participants completed a directed forgetting (DF) task framed in social and nonsocial contexts. Results revealed a dissociation in rDLPFC involvement: stimulation significantly enhanced the forgetting of negative nonsocial memories but did not affect social memories. Furthermore, rTMS moderated the relationship between social anxiety and forgetting performance: individuals with higher social anxiety struggled to forget negative social feedback in the Control TMS condition, a difficulty alleviated by rDLPFC stimulation. These findings suggest that voluntary forgetting of social and nonsocial memories engages distinct neural mechanisms and highlighting rDLPFC stimulation as a potential intervention for reducing maladaptive memory biases associated with social anxiety.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144083061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Altruistic or fair? The influence of empathy on third-party punishment: an event-related potential study.","authors":"Guanfei Zhang, Min Tan, Jin Li, Yiping Zhong","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf042","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Although most individuals strongly prefer social fairness and punish behaviours that violate fairness norms, recent psychological studies have shown that empathy towards 'perpetrators' who violate fairness norms can affect people's fairness decision-making, resulting in tolerance for unfair behaviour, even as direct 'victims' of unfair behaviour. However, in real life, people more often view unfair events from a third-party perspective, and little is known about how empathy affects fairness decisions by third parties whose self-interests are not threatened and their neurocognitive mechanisms. The present study examined effects of empathy directed towards a 'perpetrator' on third-party punishment using event-related potentials. The results suggest that, in the nonempathy condition, unfair offers induced stronger unfairness aversion in third-party decision makers and increased motivation and cognitive resource investment to alleviate this negative emotion compared to fair offers, reflecting the greater amplitude differences of fairness effects on the anterior N1 component, medial frontal negative, and smaller late positive components in the nonempathy condition. However, in the empathy condition, the differential impact of the fairness effect disappeared. These findings reveal the neural basis for trade-offs between altruistic and fairness motives in third-party fairness decision-making processes involving empathy.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144129904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cuihong Liu, Yue Qu, Guoliang Chen, Weiyan Ding, Edmund Derrington, Bing Zhang, Liyuan Pei, Yansong Li
{"title":"Pathophysiological changes in incentive processing in episodic migraine: a preliminary event-related potential study.","authors":"Cuihong Liu, Yue Qu, Guoliang Chen, Weiyan Ding, Edmund Derrington, Bing Zhang, Liyuan Pei, Yansong Li","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf039","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study examined pathophysiological changes in incentive processing in migraineurs. Nineteen episodic migraine (EM) patients and 19 healthy controls (HCs) performed a monetary incentive delay task while their event-related potentials were recorded. During the incentive anticipation phase, both Cue-N2 and Cue-P3 amplitudes were responsive to incentive cues in both groups, indicating no between-group differences in the distinct anticipatory subprocesses that underly incentive cue evaluation. During the outcome phase, the feedback-related negativity amplitude, associated with performance evaluation, was larger for punishing feedback than rewarding feedback across both groups. However, the feedback-P3 amplitude, linked to attentional processing of motivational value of outcome feedback, was significantly larger for rewarding feedback than punishing feedback in HCs, but not in EM patients. Moreover, a significant negative correlation was observed between the feedback-P3 amplitude difference for rewarding minus punishing feedback and subjective pain intensity in EM patients. Finally, the feedback late-positive potential amplitude, related to affective processing of affective value of outcome feedback, was significantly larger for punishing feedback than rewarding feedback only in HCs, but not in EM patients. Our findings suggest that recurrent severe pain may relate to abnormal incentive-related brain activity during the outcome phase of incentive processing.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144130003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Altruistic or fair? The influence of empathy on third-party punishment: an event-related potential study.","authors":"Guanfei Zhang, Min Tan, Jin Li, Yiping Zhong","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf042","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf042","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Although most individuals strongly prefer social fairness and punish behaviours that violate fairness norms, recent psychological studies have shown that empathy towards 'perpetrators' who violate fairness norms can affect people's fairness decision-making, resulting in tolerance for unfair behaviour, even as direct 'victims' of unfair behaviour. However, in real life, people more often view unfair events from a third-party perspective, and little is known about how empathy affects fairness decisions by third parties whose self-interests are not threatened and their neurocognitive mechanisms. The present study examined effects of empathy directed towards a 'perpetrator' on third-party punishment using event-related potentials. The results suggest that, in the nonempathy condition, unfair offers induced stronger unfairness aversion in third-party decision makers and increased motivation and cognitive resource investment to alleviate this negative emotion compared to fair offers, reflecting the greater amplitude differences of fairness effects on the anterior N1 component, medial frontal negative, and smaller late positive components in the nonempathy condition. However, in the empathy condition, the differential impact of the fairness effect disappeared. These findings reveal the neural basis for trade-offs between altruistic and fairness motives in third-party fairness decision-making processes involving empathy.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12079038/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144004120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Neural correlates of power-related postures and their behavioural consequences: a preliminary electrophysiological investigation.","authors":"Soren Wainio-Theberge, Jorge L Armony","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf036","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf036","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social dominance is conveyed by expansive and contractive body postures, which also have feedback effects on individuals' own mood and behaviour. These feedback effects are the subject of the 'power posing' paradigm, which has grown in popularity in psychology; however, the neural mechanisms of feedback from expansive and contractive postures have never been investigated. We report here for the first time an exploratory neuroimaging study using electroencephalography during a 'power posing' design to investigate the neural correlates of this effect. We find that right-lateralized frontal asymmetry in neural activity was increased as a result of taking an expansive posture and that this asymmetry was correlated with the effects the posture exerted on participants' mood. We interpret this finding in the context of recent theories of frontal alpha asymmetry and motivational conflict.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12083452/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144048920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Neural correlates of power-related postures and their behavioural consequences: a preliminary electrophysiological investigation.","authors":"Soren Wainio-Theberge, Jorge L Armony","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf036","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social dominance is conveyed by expansive and contractive body postures, which also have feedback effects on individuals' own mood and behaviour. These feedback effects are the subject of the 'power posing' paradigm, which has grown in popularity in psychology; however, the neural mechanisms of feedback from expansive and contractive postures have never been investigated. We report here for the first time an exploratory neuroimaging study using electroencephalography during a 'power posing' design to investigate the neural correlates of this effect. We find that right-lateralized frontal asymmetry in neural activity was increased as a result of taking an expansive posture and that this asymmetry was correlated with the effects the posture exerted on participants' mood. We interpret this finding in the context of recent theories of frontal alpha asymmetry and motivational conflict.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144129989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cuihong Liu, Yue Qu, Guoliang Chen, Weiyan Ding, Edmund Derrington, Bing Zhang, Liyuan Pei, Yansong Li
{"title":"Pathophysiological changes in incentive processing in episodic migraine: a preliminary event-related potential study.","authors":"Cuihong Liu, Yue Qu, Guoliang Chen, Weiyan Ding, Edmund Derrington, Bing Zhang, Liyuan Pei, Yansong Li","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf039","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf039","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study examined pathophysiological changes in incentive processing in migraineurs. Nineteen episodic migraine (EM) patients and 19 healthy controls (HCs) performed a monetary incentive delay task while their event-related potentials were recorded. During the incentive anticipation phase, both Cue-N2 and Cue-P3 amplitudes were responsive to incentive cues in both groups, indicating no between-group differences in the distinct anticipatory subprocesses that underly incentive cue evaluation. During the outcome phase, the feedback-related negativity amplitude, associated with performance evaluation, was larger for punishing feedback than rewarding feedback across both groups. However, the feedback-P3 amplitude, linked to attentional processing of motivational value of outcome feedback, was significantly larger for rewarding feedback than punishing feedback in HCs, but not in EM patients. Moreover, a significant negative correlation was observed between the feedback-P3 amplitude difference for rewarding minus punishing feedback and subjective pain intensity in EM patients. Finally, the feedback late-positive potential amplitude, related to affective processing of affective value of outcome feedback, was significantly larger for punishing feedback than rewarding feedback only in HCs, but not in EM patients. Our findings suggest that recurrent severe pain may relate to abnormal incentive-related brain activity during the outcome phase of incentive processing.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12083451/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144046951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}