Trends in Cognitive Sciences
ReviewSocial Decision-Making and the Brain: A Comparative Perspective
Section snippets
The Human ‘Social Brain’
Consider the following common scenario (Figure 1): you step into a busy outdoor market on a Saturday afternoon to purchase some fresh fruit from a local farmer. You are looking for a particular vendor with whom you have done business before, and whom you know is open to concede some discounts if you buy a lot of fruit. Upon arrival, you notice that the vendor is in a bad mood and that his fruits are not particularly appealing. You vacillate between bargaining with him for a lower price and
Deep Homology in the Social Brain
Choosing with whom to compete, with whom to mate, and with whom to cooperate are critical decisions for many animals that strongly impact survival and reproductive success 19, 20. Selective pressure on neural circuits supporting social behavior may generate similar solutions based on either convergence in the absence of shared ancestry [21] or elaboration of traits shared by common descent [22]. Homology is defined as shared ancestry in traits between different species. Deep homology extends
Primate Specializations in Social Behavior and Cognition
Despite growing evidence for deep homologies in biology and social behavior across vertebrates, many of our most complex, flexible, visually guided, and strategic social behaviors appear to be restricted to other primates [54]. For most primates, social bonds are crucial, shaping the reproductive success of males [55], females [56], and offspring [57]. Variation in social skills among human primates 58, 59 and nonhuman primates 60, 61 is directly related to observable variation in brain
Translational Applications
Ultimately, furthering our basic understanding of the social brain will provide new targets and opportunities to treat humans with social impairments. Research across several species of mammals has identified a highly conserved social modulator in the neuropeptide OT, provoking a recent surge of excitement about its therapeutic potential (Figure 3) [88]. Numerous studies have found that intranasal administration of OT (IN-OT) enhanced a range of complex social cognitive processes in both
Concluding Remarks
Social neuroscience is still in its infancy (see Outstanding Questions). Despite this early stage, groundwork has been laid for a basic framework in which different brain areas and circuits contribute selectively to the perception, recognition, selection, and recall of socially relevant information. Insights from research conducted in various species, including humans, has highlighted significant convergence in the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of these brain circuits, as well as in the
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by a grant from the Simons Foundation (SFARI 304935, to M.L.P.) and the National Institutes of Health (R21 MH106772, R01 NS088674, U19 MH108206, R37 MH109728, R01 MH108627 and R01 MH095894). We would also like to thank Valentine Dubois for producing the artwork in Figure 1.
Glossary
- Blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) imaging
- a non-invasive functional neuroimaging method that maps the flow of deoxygenated hemoglobin molecules in small blood vessels across the brain. This hemodynamic response is associated with single neuron spiking and dendritic potentials averaged over large volumes of tissue (voxels), each containing hundreds of thousands of cells often with different physiological properties.
- Dictator game
- an economic game in which one participant, called the dictator, is
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