title: The left inferior frontal gyrus is crucial for reading the mind in the eyes: brain lesion evidence.
abstract: Deficit in the ability to understand and predict the mental states of others is one of the central features of traumatic brain injury (TBI), leading to problems in social-daily life such as social withdrawal and the inability to maintain work or family relationships. Although several functional neuroimaging studies have identified a widely distributed brain network involved in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), the necessary brain regions engaged in this capacity are still heavily debated. In this study, we combined the RMET with a whole-brain voxel-based lesion symptom mapping (VLSM) approach to identify brain regions necessary for adequate RMET performance in a large sample of patients with penetrating TBI (pTBI). Our results revealed that pTBI patients performed worse on the RMET compared to non-head injured controls, and impaired RMET performance was associated with lesions in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Our findings suggest that the left IFG is a key region in reading the mind in the eyes, probably involved in a more general impairment of a semantic working memory system that facilitates reasoning about what others are feeling and thinking as expressed by the eyes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Dal Monte
authors.affiliation: INSERM, U1028, CNRS, UMR5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, ImpAct Team, Lyon, France; University UCBL Lyon 1, France.
authors.forename: Selene
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schintu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosciences, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics and Maternal and Child Health, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.
authors.forename: Matteo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pardini
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Berti
authors.affiliation: Behavioral Neurology Unit, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Eric M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Wassermann
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
authors.forename: Jordan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Grafman
authors.affiliation: Molecular Neuroscience Department, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA; Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA. Electronic address: fkrueger@gmu.edu.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Krueger
mesh_terms: D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000293:injuries / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D059906:Neuroimaging; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011859:Radiography; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Mental states; RMET; Semantic working memory; Traumatic brain injury; Voxel-based lesion symptom mapping