TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of the ventrolateral anterior temporal lobes in social cognition
AU - Balgova, Eva
AU - Diveica, Veronica
AU - Walbrin, Jon
AU - Binney, Richard
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Jordan Bryne and Taylor Baumler for their assistance with data collection and recruitment, and Paul Downing and Kami Koldewyn for their comments on a previous version of this manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.
PY - 2022/10/15
Y1 - 2022/10/15
N2 - A key challenge for neurobiological models of social cognition is to elucidate whether brain regions are specialised for that domain. In recent years, discussion surrounding the role of anterior temporal regions epitomises such debates; some argue the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) is part of a domain-specific network for social processing, while others claim it comprises a domain-general hub for semantic representation. In the present study, we used ATL-optimised fMRI to map the contribution of different ATL structures to a variety of paradigms frequently used to probe a crucial social ability, namely ‘theory of mind’(ToM). Using multiple tasks enables a clearer attribution of activation to ToM as opposed to idiosyncratic features of stimuli. Further, we directly explored whether these same structures are also activated by a non-social task probing semantic representations. We revealed that common to all of the tasks was activation of a key ventrolateral ATL region that is often invisible to standard fMRI. This constitutes novel evidence in support of the view that the ventrolateral ATL contributes to social cognition via a domain-general role in semantic processing and against claims of a specialised social function.
AB - A key challenge for neurobiological models of social cognition is to elucidate whether brain regions are specialised for that domain. In recent years, discussion surrounding the role of anterior temporal regions epitomises such debates; some argue the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) is part of a domain-specific network for social processing, while others claim it comprises a domain-general hub for semantic representation. In the present study, we used ATL-optimised fMRI to map the contribution of different ATL structures to a variety of paradigms frequently used to probe a crucial social ability, namely ‘theory of mind’(ToM). Using multiple tasks enables a clearer attribution of activation to ToM as opposed to idiosyncratic features of stimuli. Further, we directly explored whether these same structures are also activated by a non-social task probing semantic representations. We revealed that common to all of the tasks was activation of a key ventrolateral ATL region that is often invisible to standard fMRI. This constitutes novel evidence in support of the view that the ventrolateral ATL contributes to social cognition via a domain-general role in semantic processing and against claims of a specialised social function.
KW - anterior temporal lobe, distortion-corrected fMRI, semantic memory, social cognition, theory of mind
KW - social cognition
KW - theory of mind
KW - anterior temporal lobe
KW - distortion-corrected fMRI
KW - semantic memory
UR - https://osf.io/v2gt5/
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85132011014&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1101/2021.09.10.459496
DO - 10.1101/2021.09.10.459496
M3 - Article
C2 - 35716023
SN - 1065-9471
VL - 43
SP - 4589
EP - 4608
JO - Human Brain Mapping
JF - Human Brain Mapping
IS - 15
ER -