title: Brain networks of affective mentalizing revealed by the tear effect: The integrative role of the medial prefrontal cortex and precuneus.
abstract: Affective mentalizing involves the integration of various social signals in order to infer the affective states of others. Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that the medial prefrontal cortex, the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex, and the temporo-parietal junction constitute the core affective mentalizing network. However, the relative contributions of these regions to affective mentalizing remain unclear. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate which of these nodes are involved in the integration of two social signals: emotional tears and facial expressions. We assumed that this integration would produce a supra-additive effect, indicated by greater activity than the sum of the effects of the individual social signals. Female subjects rated the sadness of faces with either tears or tear-like circles, and either sad or neutral expressions. We observed the supra-additive effect in the medial prefrontal cortex and precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex but not in the temporo-parietal junction. These results indicate that the medial prefrontal cortex and precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex play an important role in integrating tears and facial expressions during affective mentalizing.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki 444-8585, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama 240-0193, Japan.
authors.forename: Haruka K
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.affiliation: Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki 444-8585, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama 240-0193, Japan. Electronic address: kitada@nips.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Ryo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kitada
authors.affiliation: Pathophysiological and Health Science Team, RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies, Kobe 650-0047, Japan; Department of Physiology, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka 545-8585, Japan.
authors.forename: Akihiro T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Sasaki
authors.affiliation: Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki 444-8585, Japan; Graduate School of Human Health Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo 116-8551, Japan; School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Gunma University, Maebashi 371-8511, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroaki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kawamichi
authors.affiliation: Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki 444-8585, Japan.
authors.forename: Shuntaro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Okazaki
authors.affiliation: ATR Brain Activity Imaging Center, Seika-cho 619-0288, Japan.
authors.forename: Takanori
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kochiyama
authors.affiliation: Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki 444-8585, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama 240-0193, Japan. Electronic address: sadato@nips.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Norihiro
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sadato
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D013666:Tears; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Empathy; Expression; Face; Mentalizing; Tear; fMRI