Social interaction recruits mentalizing and reward systems in middle childhood

Abstract

Social cognition develops in the context of reciprocal social interaction. However, most neuroimaging studies of mentalizing have used noninteractive tasks that may fail to capture important aspects of real-world mentalizing. In adults, social-interactive context modulates activity in regions linked to social cognition and reward, but few interactive studies have been done with children. The current fMRI study examines children aged 8-12 using a novel paradigm in which children believed they were interacting online with a peer. We compared mental and non-mental state reasoning about a live partner (Peer) versus a story character (Character), testing the effects of mentalizing and social interaction in a 2 × 2 design. Mental versus Non-Mental reasoning engaged regions identified in prior mentalizing studies, including the temporoparietal junction, superior temporal sulcus, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Moreover, peer interaction, even in conditions without explicit mentalizing demands, activated many of the same mentalizing regions. Peer interaction also activated areas outside the traditional mentalizing network, including the reward system. Our results demonstrate that social interaction engages multiple neural systems during middle childhood and contribute further evidence that social-interactive paradigms are needed to fully capture how the brain supports social processing in the real world.

Neural correlates of theory-of-mind are associated with variation in children’s everyday social cognition

“…Alternatively, FB and FP story stimuli in our study were read aloud by a neutral voice, possibly imbuing both types of stories with social salience. Recent work suggests enhanced DMPFC activity to social stimuli in middle childhood (Rice et al , 2016; Alkire et al , 2018) and adolescence (Blakemore, 2008), even in the absence of mental state content. This may reflect the enhanced salience of social information in adolescence (Somerville, 2013).…”

Impact of Stress on Gamma Oscillations in the Rat Nucleus Accumbens During Spontaneous Social Interaction

“…The main objective of this study was to find the electrophysiological correlate of social interaction in an essential area for reward processing such as the NAc. Although there was already some evidence about the participation of the NAc in social behaviors (Alkire et al, 2018; Warnell et al, 2018) to date, it was unknown that social interaction correlated with the increase in high-gamma power (61–90 Hz, in the present study) in the NAc, which points to a possible brain oscillatory modulation based on social interaction, in that specific region, in high-gamma (Figure 6). In contrast, high-gamma power in the NAc of stressed rats was independent of social interaction (Figure 6).…”

“…The aforementioned could affect the functional connectivity between the cortex and NAc in stressed animals, inducing the decrease of gamma power that we found in the stressed rats (Figure 6B,D). This could lead to a failure in the integration of cortical information in the NAc (Mallet et al, 2005), possibly from prefrontal cortex inputs, a brain region involved in social behavior, according to recent evidence (Alkire et al, 2018).…”

Role of the right temporoparietal junction in intergroup bias in trust decisions

“…The TPJ is involved in multiple cognitive functions (Alkire, Levitas, Warnell, & Redcay, ; Baumgartner, Dahinden, Gianotti, & Knoch, ; Donaldson et al, ; Fujino, Yamasaki, et al, ; Mars et al, ; Soutschek et al, ). In particular, the right TPJ plays a key role in social cognition, such as perspective taking (Krall et al, ; Schurz, Tholen, Perner, Mars, & Sallet, ; Tei et al, ), moral decision‐making (Bitsch, Berger, Nagels, Falkenberg, & Straube, ; Chen, Decety, Huang, Chen, & Cheng, ; Tei et al, , ; Young, Camprodon, Hauser, Pascual‐Leone, & Saxe, ), and strategic social behavior (Hampton, Bossaerts, & O'Doherty, ; Hill et al, ).…”

“…The TPJ is involved in multiple cognitive functions (Alkire, Levitas, Warnell, & Redcay, 2018;Baumgartner, Dahinden, Gianotti, & Knoch, 2019;Donaldson et al, 2015;Fujino, Yamasaki, et al, 2014;Mars et al, 2012;Soutschek et al, 2016). In particular, the right TPJ plays a key role in social cognition, such as perspective taking (Krall et (Hampton, Bossaerts, & O'Doherty, 2008;Hill et al, 2017).…”