title: Amygdala volume linked to individual differences in mental state inference in early childhood and adulthood.
abstract: We investigated the role of the amygdala in mental state inference in a sample of adults and in a sample of children aged 4 and 6 years. This period in early childhood represents a time when mentalizing abilities undergo dramatic changes. Both children and adults inferred mental states from pictures of others' eyes, and children also inferred the mental states of others from stories (e.g., a false belief task). We also collected structural MRI data from these participants, to determine whether larger amygdala volumes (controlling for age and total gray matter volume) were related to better face-based and story-based mentalizing. For children, larger amygdala volumes were related to better face-based, but not story-based, mentalizing. In contrast, in adults, amygdala volume was not related to face-based mentalizing. We next divided the face-based items into two subscales: cognitive (e.g., thinking, not believing) versus affective (e.g., friendly, kind) items. For children, performance on cognitive items was positively correlated with amygdala volume, but for adults, only performance on affective items was positively correlated with amygdala volume. These results indicate that the amygdala's role in mentalizing may be specific to face-based tasks and that the nature of its involvement may change over development.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, United States.
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rice
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, United States.
authors.forename: Brieana
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Viscomi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, United States.
authors.forename: Tracy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Riggins
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, United States. Electronic address: redcay@umd.edu.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Redcay
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000339:Affect; D000679:Amygdala / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003469:Culture; D005123:Eye; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009929:Organ Size; D012919:Social Behavior; D056345:Theory of Mind; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Amygdala; Early childhood; Individual differences; Social cognition; Theory of mind