title: Neural correlates of naturalistic social cognition: brain-behavior relationships in healthy adults.
abstract: Being able to infer the thoughts, feelings and intentions of those around us is indispensable in order to function in a social world. Despite growing interest in social cognition and its neural underpinnings, the factors that contribute to successful mental state attribution remain unclear. Current knowledge is limited because the most widely used tasks suffer from two main constraints: (i) They fail to capture individual variability due to ceiling effects and (ii) they use highly simplistic, often artificial stimuli inapt to mirror real-world socio-cognitive demands. In the present study, we address these problems by employing complex depictions of naturalistic social interactions that vary in both valence (positive vs negative) and ambiguity (high vs low). Thirty-eight healthy participants (20 female) made mental state judgments while brain responses were obtained using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Accuracy varied based on valence and ambiguity conditions and women were more accurate than men with highly ambiguous social stimuli. Activity of the orbitofrontal cortex predicted performance in the high ambiguity condition. The results shed light on subtle differences in mentalizing abilities and associated neural activity.
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, 52074, Aachen, Germany ldeuse@ukaachen.de.|JARA - Translational Brain Medicine, Aachen and Jülich, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
authors: L
authors: L
authors: Deuse
authors: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Social Neuroscience Lab, University of Lübeck, 23538, Lübeck, Germany.
authors: L M
authors: LM
authors: Rademacher
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, 52074, Aachen, Germany.|JARA - Translational Brain Medicine, Aachen and Jülich, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
authors: L
authors: L
authors: Winkler
authors: Center for Autism Research, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 19104, Philadelphia, PA, USA.|Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, 19104, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors: R T
authors: RT
authors: Schultz
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, 52074, Aachen, Germany.|JARA - Translational Brain Medicine, Aachen and Jülich, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Gründer
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, 52074, Aachen, Germany.|JARA - Translational Brain Medicine, Aachen and Jülich, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
authors: S E
authors: SE
authors: Lammertz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D033182:Intention; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007600:Judgment; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception; D066107:Social Skills; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: OFC; individual differences; naturalistic stimuli; social cognition; theory of mind