Live agent preference and social action monitoring in the macaque mid-superior temporal sulcus region
| Autor: | Masaki Isoda, Taihei Ninomiya, Atsushi Noritake |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Male
Social Cognition Social intelligence self-action Temporoparietal junction Social Interaction Theory of Mind temporoparietal junction Macaque Mentalization biology.animal Neural Pathways medicine action prediction error Animals Brain Mapping other-action Multidisciplinary biology Brain Superior temporal sulcus Biological Sciences Magnetic Resonance Imaging Preference Temporal Lobe medicine.anatomical_structure Action (philosophy) Social Perception mentalizing Macaca Psychology Neuroscience Social cognitive theory |
| Zdroj: | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
| ISSN: | 1091-6490 |
| Popis: | Significance During live social interactions, there is increased demand for mentalizing about others to cope with otherwise unpredictable manifestations of their behavior. Anatomically, the middle superior temporal sulcus (mid-STS) region is hypothesized to be the macaque homologue of the human temporoparietal junction (TPJ), a key node in the mentalizing network. However, whether the macaque mid-STS is the functional homologue of the human TPJ is unknown. Here, we provide single-neuron evidence that the two areas share similar properties in social cognitive functions despite differences in anatomical landmarks. Our findings demonstrate that mid-STS neurons have a preference for task performance with live over video-recorded partners and encode errors in the prediction of partners’ actions, both aspects being cardinal features of the human TPJ. Mentalizing, the ability to infer the mental states of others, is a cornerstone of adaptive social intelligence. While functional brain mapping of human mentalizing has progressed considerably, its evolutionary signature in nonhuman primates remains debated. The discovery that the middle part of the macaque superior temporal sulcus (mid-STS) region has a connectional fingerprint most similar to the human temporoparietal junction (TPJ)—a crucial node in the mentalizing network—raises the possibility that these cortical areas may also share basic functional properties associated with mentalizing. Here, we show that this is the case in aspects of a preference for live social interactions and in a theoretical framework of predictive coding. Macaque monkeys were trained to perform a turn-taking choice task with another real monkey partner sitting directly face-to-face or a filmed partner appearing in prerecorded videos. We found that about three-fourths of task-related mid-STS neurons exhibited agent-dependent activity, most responding selectively or preferentially to the partner’s action. At the population level, activities of these partner-type neurons were significantly greater under live-partner compared to video-recorded–partner task conditions. Furthermore, a subset of the partner-type neurons responded proactively when predictions about the partner’s action were violated. This prediction error coding was specific to the action domain; almost none of the neurons signaled error in the prediction of reward. The present findings highlight unique roles of the macaque mid-STS at the single-neuron level and further delineate its functional parallels with the human TPJ in social cognitive processes associated with mentalizing. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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