Dataset Information

Recruitment of both the mirror and the mentalizing networks when observing social interactions depicted by point-lights: a neuroimaging study.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Understanding social interactions requires the ability to accurately interpret conspecifics' actions, sometimes only on the basis of subtle body language analysis. Here we address an important issue that has not yet received much attention in social neuroscience, that of an interaction between two agents. We attempted to isolate brain responses to two individuals interacting compared to two individuals acting independently. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We used minimalistic point-light displays to depict the characters, as they provide the most straightforward way to isolate mechanisms used to extract information from motion per se without any interference with other visual information. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) method was used to determine which brain regions were recruited during the observation of two interacting agents, mimicking everyday social scenes. While the mirror and mentalizing networks are rarely concurrently active, we found that both of them might be needed to catch the social intentions carried by whole-body motion. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:These findings shed light on how motor cognition contributes to social cognition when social information is embedded in whole-body motion only. Finally, the approach described here provides a valuable and original tool for investigating the brain networks responsible for social understanding, in particular in psychiatric disorders.

SUBMITTER: Centelles L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3018423 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Recruitment of both the mirror and the mentalizing networks when observing social interactions depicted by point-lights: a neuroimaging study.

Centelles Laurie L Assaiante Christine C Nazarian Bruno B Anton Jean-Luc JL Schmitz Christina C

PloS one 20110110 1

<h4>Background</h4>Understanding social interactions requires the ability to accurately interpret conspecifics' actions, sometimes only on the basis of subtle body language analysis. Here we address an important issue that has not yet received much attention in social neuroscience, that of an interaction between two agents. We attempted to isolate brain responses to two individuals interacting compared to two individuals acting independently.<h4>Methodology/principal findings</h4>We used minimal ...[more]

PMID: 21249224

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Project description:Converging evidence indicates that brain abnormalities in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) involve atypical network connectivity, but it is unclear whether altered connectivity is especially prominent in brain networks that participate in social cognition.To investigate whether adolescents with ASD show altered functional connectivity in 2 brain networks putatively impaired in ASD and involved in social processing, theory of mind (ToM) and mirror neuron system (MNS).Cross-sectional study using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging involving 25 adolescents with ASD between the ages of 11 and 18 years and 25 typically developing adolescents matched for age, handedness, and nonverbal IQ.Statistical parametric maps testing the degree of whole-brain functional connectivity and social functioning measures.Relative to typically developing controls, participants with ASD showed a mixed pattern of both over- and underconnectivity in the ToM network, which was associated with greater social impairment. Increased connectivity in the ASD group was detected primarily between the regions of the MNS and ToM, and was correlated with sociocommunicative measures, suggesting that excessive ToM-MNS cross talk might be associated with social impairment. In a secondary analysis comparing a subset of the 15 participants with ASD with the most severe symptomology and a tightly matched subset of 15 typically developing controls, participants with ASD showed exclusive overconnectivity effects in both ToM and MNS networks, which were also associated with greater social dysfunction.Adolescents with ASD showed atypically increased functional connectivity involving the mentalizing and mirror neuron systems, largely reflecting greater cross talk between the 2. This finding is consistent with emerging evidence of reduced network segregation in ASD and challenges the prevailing theory of general long-distance underconnectivity in ASD. This excess ToM-MNS connectivity may reflect immature or aberrant developmental processes in 2 brain networks involved in understanding of others, a domain of impairment in ASD. Further, robust links with sociocommunicative symptoms of ASD implicate atypically increased ToM-MNS connectivity in social deficits observed in ASD.

Dataset Information

Recruitment of both the mirror and the mentalizing networks when observing social interactions depicted by point-lights: a neuroimaging study.

Publications

Recruitment of both the mirror and the mentalizing networks when observing social interactions depicted by point-lights: a neuroimaging study.

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