Neural Mechanisms of Social Cognition in Primates

Abstract

Activity in a network of areas spanning the superior temporal sulcus, dorsomedial frontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex is concerned with how nonhuman primates negotiate the social worlds in which they live. Central aspects of these circuits are retained in humans. Activity in these areas codes for primates' interactions with one another, their attempts to find out about one another, and their attempts to prevent others from finding out too much about themselves. Moreover, important features of the social world, such as dominance status, cooperation, and competition, modulate activity in these areas. We consider the degree to which activity in these regions is simply encoding an individual's own actions and choices or whether this activity is especially and specifically concerned with social cognition. Recent advances in comparative anatomy and computational modeling may help us to gain deeper insights into the nature and boundaries of primate social cognition.

Sulcal organization in the medial frontal cortex reveals insights into primate brain evolution

“…Finally, as no new areas have been identified in the human medial frontal cortex in neuroimaging (Sallet et al, 2013;Neubert et al, 2015) and cytoarchitectonic (Petrides and Pandya, 1994;Petrides et al, 2012) studies, one could suggest the emergence of a new sulcus present in the medial cortical region of the human brain might reflect the relative expansion of this region compared to other primates. For instance, we suggest that the RP-PCGS reflects the expansion of medial area 9, a region thought to be important for social metacognitive abilities (Amodio and Frith, 2006;Vaccaro and Fleming, 2018;Wittmann et al, 2018).…”

“…Differences were associated with 1) a sulcus only observed in humans, the rostro-perpendicular paracingulate sulcus (RP-PCGS), 2) the progressive emergence of the DMPS and VMPS, and 3) the SU-ROS/SOS intersection that is displaced downwards from the level of the apex of the genu of the corpus callosum as one compares more distantly related primates to humans. There is no evidence from cytoarchitectonic (Petrides and Pandya, 1994;Petrides et al, 2012) and neuroimaging (Sallet et al, 2013;Neubert et al, 2015) studies that these changes are associated with new cortical areas, suggesting instead differential expansion of 1) the rostral medial prefrontal cortex (area 9) and medial frontopolar cortex (area 10), two brain regions that have been considered important for high-order socio-cognitive processing, such as mentalizing (Amodio and Frith, 2006;Vaccaro and Fleming, 2018;Wittmann et al, 2018) and…”

“…The ACC, vmPFC, and medial frontopolar cortex are the focus of many studies on, respectively, emotional processing (Caruana et al, 2018), value-based decision-making (Rushworth et al, 2011;Papageorgiou et al, 2017), and high-order socio-cognitive processing (e.g. mentalizing (Amodio and Frith, 2006;Vaccaro and Fleming, 2018;Wittmann et al, 2018)).…”

Senomic view of the cell: SenomeversusGenome

“…All this suggests that a shared species specific Senome , as collective information and communication, underlies social networks in humans [100,101]. Therefore, it is argued that the Senome has direct pertinence for understanding human perception and understanding of mental signals from outside (memes) or from within our own bodies (perceived as emotions and feelings) and further relevances for both individual and social cognition [100–107], that ultimately leads to the theory of mind [5,106,108,109] and human cultural evolution [110–113]. …”

Human and macaque pairs employ different coordination strategies in a transparent decision game

“…Macaques play a particularly important role in this context, as the most common nonhuman primate model for studying the neuronal basis of higher socio-cognitive functions 4,13,14 . The realization that primate brain functions are best understood under social conditions in which they evolved sparked a surge of interest in behavioral repertoire and neural correlates of economic and social factors underlying social cognition in humans and nonhuman primates 15,16 .…”