Keeping track of self-executed facial expressions is essential for the ability to correctly interpret and reciprocate social expressions. However, little is known about neural mechanisms that participate in self-monitoring of facial expression. We designed a natural paradigm for social interactions where a monkey is seated in front of a peer monkey that is concealed by an opaque liquid crystal display shutter positioned between them. Opening the shutter for short durations allowed the monkeys to see each other and encouraged facial communication. To explore neural mechanisms that participate in self-monitoring of facial expression, we simultaneously recorded the elicited natural facial interactions and the neural activity of single neurons in the amygdala and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), two regions that are implicated with decoding of others' gestures. Neural activity in both regions was temporally locked to distinctive facial gestures and close inspection of time lags revealed activity that either preceded (production) or lagged (monitor) initiation of facial expressions. This result indicates that single neurons in the dACC and the amygdala hold information about self-executed facial expressions and demonstrates an intimate overlap between the neural networks that participate in decoding and production of socially informative facial information.face-to-face interaction | spike triggered average | facial-expression production | amygdala-cingulate interaction A ccurate decoding of social interaction requires information about all participants, including one's own behavior. We would interpret differently a smile if we knew that we smiled first (or not) and, similarly, a threatening face has different meaning if we threatened first. Computationally, this ambiguity implies that information about the observed facial expression and one's own expression should converge in the network to incorporate these complementary sources of information. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms that enable such integration.Successful decoding of a facial expression should allow a rapid adequate response to the outcome that is implied by this meaningful expression. Accordingly, the amygdala, a structure associated with representing the learned valence of sensory inputs (1, 2), has been implicated with decoding and processing of various facial expressions (3). Notably, bilateral amygdala lesion selectively impairs recognition of fear expressions (4), which possibly signal the existence of an immediate threat. In addition, amygdala responses to fear and other facial expressions are modulated by social context (5, 6) (e.g., gaze direction), suggesting that the amygdala also participates in the decoding processes of a wider range of emotionally salient facial signals.The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) is hypothesized to synthesize information about reinforcers with the current behavioral goal (7) and contributes to the resolution of emotional conflicts (8). Like the amygdala, dACC response to facia...