Functional localizer tasks allow researchers to identify brain regions in each individual's brain, using a combination of anatomical and functional constraints. In this study we compare three social cognitive localizer tasks, designed to efficiently identify regions in the “Pain Matrix”, recruited in response to a person's physical pain, and the “Theory of Mind network”, recruited in response to a person's mental states (i.e. beliefs and emotions). Participants performed three tasks: first, the verbal false-belief stories task; second, a verbal task including stories describing physical pain versus emotional suffering; and third, passively viewing a nonverbal animated movie, which included segments depicting physical pain, and beliefs and emotions. All three localizers were efficient in identifying replicable, stable networks in individual subjects. The consistency across tasks makes all three tasks viable localizers. Nevertheless, there were small reliable differences in the location of the regions and the pattern of activity within regions, hinting at more specific representations. The new localizers go beyond those currently available: first, they simultaneously identify two functional networks with no additional scan time, and second, the non-verbal task extends the populations in whom functional localizers can be applied. These localizers will be made publicly available.

Recent behavioral work demonstrates that many people view low-status groups as less "evolved and civilized" than high-status groups. Are these people using blatant expressions of dehumanization simply to express strong dislike toward other groups? Or is blatant dehumanization a process distinct from other negative assessments? We tested these competing hypotheses using functional neuroimaging. Participants judged 10 groups (e.g., Europeans, Muslims, rats) on four scales: blatant dehumanization, dislike, dissimilarity and perceived within-group homogeneity. Consistent with expectations, neural responses when making ratings of dehumanization diverged from those when judging the same targets on the other related dimensions. Specifically, we found regions in the left inferior parietal cortex (IPC) and left inferior frontal cortex (IFC) that were selectively parametrically modulated by dehumanization ratings. The pattern of responses in the left IFC was also consistent with animalistic dehumanization: high responses to low-status human groups and animals, and lower responses to high-status human groups. By contrast, a region in the posterior cingulate cortex was parametrically sensitive specifically to liking. We therefore demonstrate a double dissociation between brain activity associated with judgments of blatant dehumanization and judgments of dislike. (PsycINFO Database Record

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a standard tool to investigate the neural correlates of cognition. fMRI noninvasively measures brain activity, allowing identification of patterns evoked by tasks performed during scanning. Despite the long history of this technique, the idiosyncrasies of each dataset have led to the use of ad-hoc preprocessing protocols customized for nearly every different study. This approach is time-consuming, error-prone, and unsuitable for combining datasets from many sources. Here we showcase fMRIPrep ( http://fmriprep.org ), a robust tool to prepare human fMRI data for statistical analysis. This software instrument addresses the reproducibility concerns of the established protocols for fMRI preprocessing. By leveraging the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) to standardize both the input datasets -MRI data as stored by the scanner-and the outputs -data ready for modeling and analysis-, fMRIPrep is capable of preprocessing a diversity of datasets without manual intervention. In support of the growing popularity of fMRIPrep , this protocol describes how to integrate the tool in a task-based fMRI investigation workflow.

1 2Brain regions in the "pain matrix", can be activated by observing or reading about others 3 in physical pain. In previous research, we found that reading stories about others' 4 emotional suffering, by contrast, recruits a different group of brain regions mostly 5 associated with thinking about others' minds. In the current study, we examined the 6 neural circuits responsible for deliberately regulating empathic responses to others' pain 7 and suffering. In Study 1, a sample of college-aged participants (n=18) read stories about 8 physically painful and emotionally distressing events during functional magnetic 9 resonance imaging (fMRI), while either actively empathizing with the main character or 10 trying to remain objective. In Study 2, the same experiment was performed with 11 professional social workers, who are chronically exposed to human suffering (n=21). 12Across both studies activity in the amygdala was associated with empathic regulation 13 towards others' emotional pain, but not their physical pain. In addition, 14 psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis and granger causal modeling (GCM) 15showed that amygdala activity while reading about others' emotional pain was preceded 16by and positively coupled with activity in the theory of mind brain regions, and followed 17 by and negatively coupled with activity in regions associated with physical pain and 18 bodily sensations. Previous work has shown that the amygdala is critically involved in the 19 deliberate control of self-focused distress -the current results extend the central 20 importance of amygdala activity to the control of other-focused empathy, but only when 21 considering others' emotional pain. 22 23 24

In addition to understanding individual word meanings and processing the syntactic and semantic dependencies among those words within a sentence, language comprehension often requires constructing a higher-order discourse structure based on the relationships among clauses and sentences in the extended context. Prior fMRI studies of discourse-level comprehension have reported greater activation for texts than unconnected sentences in what-appear-to-be regions of the Theory of Mind (ToM) network. However, those studies have generally used narratives rich in mental state content, thus confounding coherence and content. We report an fMRI experiment where ToM regions were defined functionally in each participant, and their responses were examined to texts vs. sentence lists. Critically, we used expository texts to minimize mental state content. Medial frontal but not posterior ToM regions exhibited small but reliable increases in their responses to texts relative to unconnected sentences, suggesting a role for these regions in discourse comprehension independent of content.