Domain-specific representation of social inference by neurons in the human amygdala and hippocampus
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Inferring the intentions and emotions of others from behavior is crucial for social cognition. While neuroimaging studies have identified brain regions involved in social inference, it remains unknown whether performing social inference is an abstract computation that generalizes across different stimulus categories or is specific to certain stimulus domain. We recorded single-neuron activity from the medial temporal lobe (MTL) and the medial frontal cortex (MFC) in neurosurgical patients performing different types of inferences from images of faces, hands, and natural scenes. Our findings indicate distinct neuron populations in both regions encoding inference type for social (faces, hands) and nonsocial (scenes) stimuli, while stimulus category was itself represented in a task-general manner. Uniquely in the MTL, social inference type was represented by separate subsets of neurons for faces and hands, suggesting a domain-specific representation. These results reveal evidence for specialized social inference processes in the MTL, in which inference representations were entangled with stimulus type as expected from a domain-specific process.
Source: Science Advances
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $4,500
Awards: G1523888516, G2070036510, HCC: Small: Toward Computational Modeling of Autism Spectrum Disorder: Multimodal Data Collection, Fusion, and Phenotyping, G4516736450, G4688979514, G4957113771, G6543774530, G6668298950, CAREER:Single-neuron mechanisms of social attention in humans, Delineating the neural computational network for object recognition, Model-Based Investigation of Aberrant Neural Face Representation in Autism
OpenAlex ID: W4405022491