Distinct regions of medial rostral prefrontal cortex supporting social and nonsocial functions
Open accessAbstract
While some recent neuroimaging studies have implicated medial rostral prefrontal cortex (MPFC) in 'mentalizing' and self-reflection, others have implicated this region in attention towards perceptual vs self-generated information. In order to reconcile these seemingly contradictory findings, we used fMRI to investigate MPFC activity related to these two functions in a factorial design. Participants performed two separate tasks, each of which alternated between 'stimulus-oriented phases' (SO), where participants attended to task-relevant perceptual information, and 'stimulus-independent phases' (SI), where participants performed the same tasks in the absence of such information. In half of the blocks ('mentalizing condition'), participants were instructed that they were performing these tasks in collaboration with an experimenter; in other blocks ('non-mentalizing condition'), participants were instructed that the experimenter was not involved. In fact, the tasks were identical in these conditions. Neuroimaging data revealed adjacent but clearly distinct regions of activation within MPFC related to (i) mentalizing vs non-mentalizing conditions (relatively caudal/superior) and (ii) SO vs SI attention (relatively rostral/inferior). These results generalized from one task to the other, suggesting a new axis of functional organization within MPFC.
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Gilbert et al. (2007) confirmed that attention was located more anterior, at the tip of the mPFC, than mentalizing functions.
“In a recent study comparing directly mentalizing and attention tasks, Gilbert et al. (2007) confirmed that attention was located more anterior (at the tip of the mPFC) than mentalizing functions.”
From Social cognition and the brain: A meta-analysis (2009) · cites this paper as Gilbert et al. (2007)
Cites
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Self-citationDEFICITS IN STRATEGY APPLICATION FOLLOWING FRONTAL LOBE DAMAGE IN MAN
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“Additional studies have reported MPFC activation associated with reflection upon one’s own emotions (Lane et al., 1997; Gusnard et al., 2001) and character traits (Johnson et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004 ).”
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Van Overwalle, F. (2009) · Human Brain Mapping · doi:10.1002/hbm.20547 · Cited by 1,792 · see citing works
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“The aFMC is involved in mentalizing (Frith & Frith, 2006; Gilbert et al., 2007) and self-referential processing (Northoff et al., 2006).”
BackgroundThe Neural Bases of Social Cognition and Story Comprehension
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“Given that previous studies have associated medial BA 10 with environmentally-driven behaviour, and lateral BA 10 with tasks requiring attention to be diverted toward self-generated information [35–39] Gilbert and colleagues’ findings support the differing demands of cued performance versus self-initiated performance.”
Social interaction recruits mentalizing and reward systems in middle childhood
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Elliott, R. (2012) · Archives of General Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.139 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
- Authors
- Gilbert, S. J., Williamson, I. D. M., Dumontheil, I., Simons, J. S., Frith, C. D., & Burgess, P. W.
- Affiliations
- UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology (GB)
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (GB)
- Venue
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2007-05-17
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 217-226
- ISSN
- 1749-5016 (ISSN-L)
- 1749-5024
- PMC
- PMC2569804
- OpenAlex
- W2152701493
- Cited by
- 112
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 5.84
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (061171)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- mentalization, self-reflection, social cognition, attention
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Attention, Cognition, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Social Behavior, Social Perception, Prefrontal Cortex, Young Adult, Theory of Mind
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