The emerging impact of social neuroscience on neuropsychiatry and clinical neuroscience

MARIO MENDEZ; FACUNDO MANES

SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE

PSYCHOLOGY PRESS

Lugar: Hove; Año: 2011 vol. 6 p. 415 - 419

1747-0919

Social neuroscience has made great strides towards clarifying the neural basis of brain-behavior relationships. In the last twenty-five years, social neuroscience has made contributions to many fields, including cognitive neuroscience, social psychology, ethology, economics, and even philosophy. The field has spawned a highly productive collaboration between investigators in these areas, many of whom have profited from the great leap forward in functional neuroimaging. It is now time for social neuroscience to make similar contributions to neuropsychiatry. Social behavior is integral to all brain-behavior disorders. Neuropsychiatry, and an understanding of the topics in this edition, depend upon the basic neural correlates of social behavior. It begins with social perception, or the ability to detect the presence of another mental agent, including the critical roles of face recognition and the fusiform face area (Kanwisher & Yovel, 2006) and the superior temporal gyrus or sulcus (STG/S) for observed biological motion. Mechanisms for social simulation of not only others’ movements but their intentions and emotions have emerged in conjunction with discoveries in a mirror neuron system. Areas of socioemotional significance include the anterior insulae and anterior cingulate cortex, the anterior temporal cortex, and, especially pertinent to the articles in this edition, the amygdalae, which plays a role in emotional salience and significance. Our brains are primed for thinking about the minds of others. Making inferences about others’ mental states, or Theory of Mind (ToM), produces greater activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), and medial parietal cortex (Frith & Frith, 2006).