Dynamical Representation of Dominance Relationships in the Human Rostromedial Prefrontal Cortex

Abstract

Humans and other primates have evolved the ability to represent their status in the group's social hierarchy, which is essential for avoiding harm and accessing resources. Yet it remains unclear how the human brain learns dominance status and adjusts behavior accordingly during dynamic social interactions. Here we address this issue with a combination of fMRI and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In a first fMRI experiment, participants learned an implicit dominance hierarchy while playing a competitive game against three opponents of different skills. Neural activity in the rostromedial PFC (rmPFC) dynamically tracked and updated the dominance status of the opponents, whereas the ventromedial PFC and ventral striatum reacted specifically to competitive victories and defeats. In a second experiment, we applied anodal tDCS over the rmPFC to enhance neural excitability while subjects performed a similar competitive task. The stimulation enhanced the relative weight of victories over defeats in learning social dominance relationships and exacerbated the influence of one's own dominance over competitive strategies. Importantly, these tDCS effects were specific to trials in which subjects learned about dominance relationships, as they were not present for control choices associated with monetary incentives but no competitive feedback. Taken together, our findings elucidate the role of rmPFC computations in dominance learning and unravel a fundamental mechanism that governs the emergence and maintenance of social dominance relationships in humans.

How attention gates social interactions

“…At the neural level, mentalizing processes have been associated with the activity occurring within cortical regions such as the medio‐prefrontal cortex, TPJ, and precuneus . Socio‐evaluative processes, on the other hand, have been associated with the activity in both cortical and subcortical regions, including the orbitofrontal cortex, ventro‐medial prefrontal cortex, striatum, and amygdala . Future studies could manipulate perceptual, interpretive, and evaluative operations in isolation and in combination to uncover the pathways through which these processes connect and interact with attentional systems.…”

Avoidant Responses to Interpersonal Provocation Are Associated with Increased Amygdala and Decreased Mentalizing Network Activity

“…Specifically, it has been suggested that mPFC encodes social dominance in concert with other brain areas involved in social cognition such as the temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) or the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) among others (Zink et al, 2008; Bault et al, 2011; Mason et al, 2014). Crucially, Ligneul et al (2016) have recently shown that victories against a better-performing opponent recruit the mPFC, and that electrically upregulating this region potentiates dominance-based decisions. Taken together, these findings suggest that avoidant and aggressive responses to provocation might partly rely on social-cognitive processes.…”

Social status and modern‐type depression: A review

“…tDCS is a noninvasive intervention that has already been applied for the treatment of depression in clinical practice (Fregni et al, ; Nitsche, Boggio, Fregni, & Pascual‐Leone, ). Ligneul et al () reported that tDCS of the rmPFC shifts the values of victory and defeat for dominance learning in humans, which suggests that tDCS may be a useful tool to improve the mental disorders induced by social hierarchal order. Psychotherapy is generally also thought to be useful to overcome avoidance.…”