Social Cognitive Neuroscience of Mental States
Summary
Social cognitive neuroscience of mental states is an interdisciplinary field that investigates the neural mechanisms underpinning our capacity to understand, predict and respond to the thoughts, intentions and emotions of others. Central to this endeavour is the concept of the “social brain”, a distributed set of regions including the medial prefrontal cortex, temporo-parietal junction, posterior cingulate cortex and subcortical structures such as the amygdala. These areas interact as functional networks—commonly the default mode network for self-referential thought and the mentalizing network for attribution of mental states—to support processes such as theory of mind, empathy and social decision-making. Research in this domain draws on methodologies ranging from functional magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging to electrophysiology and computational modelling, often employing naturalistic paradigms that simulate real-world social interactions. Advances in structural and functional connectivity have revealed how network integration and modularity shape individual differences in social cognitive skills and how these systems are altered in conditions such as autism, schizophrenia, neurodegenerative disorders and healthy ageing. Understanding the neural basis of mental state attribution has practical implications for developing targeted interventions to ameliorate social deficits, informing artificial intelligence design for social agents and guiding policy on mental health and social welfare globally.
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Social Cognitive Neuroscience of Mental States publication trend
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Technical terms
Theory of Mind: The cognitive capacity to attribute beliefs, desires and intentions to oneself and others to predict and interpret behaviour.
Empathy: The affective and cognitive processes by which one understands and shares the emotional states of others.
Mentalizing Network: A distributed set of brain regions, including the medial prefrontal and temporo-parietal cortices, involved in inferring others’ mental states.
Default Mode Network (DMN): A resting-state network of midline and lateral regions active during self-referential thought, autobiographical memory and social cognition.
Functional Connectivity: Statistical dependencies between neurophysiological signals in distinct brain regions, indicating coordinated activity.
Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM): A neuroimaging analysis technique that assesses local differences in grey matter volume across the brain.
References
- Grey-matter correlates of empathy in 4-Repeat Tauopathies. npj Parkinson's Disease (2023).
- Interactions within the social brain: Co-activation and connectivity among networks enabling empathy and Theory of Mind. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (2023).
- Task-based functional neural correlates of social cognition across autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Molecular Autism (2024).
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