The DOI matches its Crossref record; 62 of the 62 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Shared neural coding for social hierarchy and reward value in primate amygdala
Open accessAbstract
The social brain hypothesis posits that dedicated neural systems process social information. In support of this, neurophysiological data have shown that some brain regions are specialized for representing faces. It remains unknown, however, whether distinct anatomical substrates also represent more complex social variables, such as the hierarchical rank of individuals within a social group. Here we show that the primate amygdala encodes the hierarchical rank of individuals in the same neuronal ensembles that encode the rewards associated with nonsocial stimuli. By contrast, orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortices lack strong representations of hierarchical rank while still representing reward values. These results challenge the conventional view that dedicated neural systems process social information. Instead, information about hierarchical rank—which contributes to the assessment of the social value of individuals within a group—is linked in the amygdala to representations of rewards associated with nonsocial stimuli. New data reveal that the amygdala—a brain area specialized for emotion—also signals the hierarchical rank of peers in a social group. These neural signals likely mediate appropriate social and emotional behavior in many social settings.
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“Neurons that are sensitive to the rank of the individual being viewed in the social hierarchy are found not only in the macaque amygdala, but also in the closely connected OFC, and anterior cingulate cortex (Munuera et al., 2018).”
From The orbitofrontal cortex: reward, emotion and depression (2020) · cites this paper as Munuera et al., 2018
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Kemmerer, D. L. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190682620.002.0003
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Contributions of nonhuman primate research to unraveling the social brain and its impairments
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Jiang, M., Chang, S. W. C., & Hong, W. (2026) · Current Opinion in Neurobiology · doi:10.1016/j.conb.2026.103177
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“…that respond more to negative unconditioned stimuli (airpuff) than positive ones (juice) also respond more to a threatening naturalistic visual cue (direct gaze of an intruder) than a nonthreatening one (averted gaze) and reward-responsiveness correlates with responsiveness to social rank[19, 20].”
Nonoverlapping Social and Sucrose Reward Representations in the Basolateral Amygdala
Javier, J. L., Balasubramanian, H., Isaac, J., Young, L. J., & Murugan, M. (2026) · Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.2118-25.2026
Wu, C., Xu, Z., Sun, Q., Li, C., Chapman, C. A., & Fan, P. (2026) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2026.107024
Metadata
- Authors
- Munuera, J., Rigotti, M., & Salzman, C. D.
- Affiliations
- Columbia University (US)
- IBM (United States) (US)
- New York State Psychiatric Institute (US)
- Corresponding author
- Munuera, Jérôme
- Salzman, C. Daniel
- Venue
- Nature Neuroscience
- Published
- 2018-02-19
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 415-423
- ISSN
- 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
- 1546-1726
- PMC
- PMC6092962
- OpenAlex
- W2789621216
- Cited by
- 126
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 5
- FWCI
- 21.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Simons Foundation
- Philippe Foundation
- Fondation Fyssen
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH082017)
- National Eye Institute (P30EY019007)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Keywords
- social hierarchy, hierarchical rank, amygdala, reward value, social brain hypothesis, orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, primate social behavior, face processing
- MeSH terms
- Amygdala, Animals, Conditioning, Operant, Hierarchy, Social, Macaca mulatta, Male, Neurons, Photic Stimulation, Reward
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