Several brain regions are involved in social functions like detecting biological motion, perspective taking, processing emotions, and understanding goals and desires. Senses and facial recognition also contribute to social interaction. An important concept is the action-perception loop where individuals shape their environment and have their brain modified by it in turn. Mentalizing and developing theories of mind allow people to understand others' feelings and intentions. Attachment styles and nonverbal cues like gaze further influence social behaviors.

1. Social neuroscience
Domina Petric, MD

2. Introduction
Several brain regions
have been attributed
to certain socially
relevant functions.

3. STS
• Superior temporal sulcus (STS) is
linked to the detection of
biological motion.http://operativeneurosurgery.com

4. Medial prefrontal cortex
• The medial prefrontal cortex and
midline cortical structures are
related to perspective taking as
well as self-related processing and
awareness.
http://www.psypost.org

5. Temporal pole, amygdala
• The temporal pole and amygdala are
related to social scripts,
emotions, and judgments.
Medvizor.com

6. Temporoparietal junction
• The temporoparietal junction, along
with medial prefrontal cortex and
temporal poles are related to
mentalizing immediate goals and
desires.
Wikipedia.org

7. Senses
• Senses are important for social
interaction.
• Deafness at an early age
impairs mental development
strongly if no gestural
language is available, and
early blindness affects social
communication.

8. Senses
• The social touch relies on thin
unmyelinated fibers.
• Stimulation of unmyelinated
fibers is associated with
release of oxytocin that is
important for social bonding
and trust.

9. Faces
• Faces are essential for the
development of interacting
minds.
• In adults, visual analysis of
faces involves the fusiform
gyrus, the inferior occipital
gyrus, and the posterior part
of STS.

10. Faces
• The “fusiform face area”
responds, 140–170 ms after
stimulus onset, more strongly
to faces than to any other
objects.
• The fusiform gyrus probably
relates to the awareness of the
presence of a face.

11. Faces
The cortical
representations of faces
seem to be distributed
both spatially and
temporally.

12. Action-perception loop
• People are active
participants in their
interactions with the
environment, searching for
information and
simultaneously changing the
environment.

13. Action-perception loop
• Each person influences and
shapes her environment, and
the environment (including
other people) in turn
modifies the brain of the
acting person.

14. Action-perception loop
• With repetition, actions become
automatically associated with the
expected sensory consequences.
• Perception can be simulated without
any external physical stimuli, and
the consequences of the forthcoming
actions can be anticipated.

15. Action-perception loop
•Understanding another
person's actions
necessitates a close
action–perception link
both within and between
individuals.

16. Intersubjectivity
• Intersubjectivity refers to
implicit understanding of
other persons' feelings and
aims and the sharing of a
common world.

17. Mentalizing
• An important manifestation of the
ability to distinguish between self
and others is mentalizing.
• It is thinking about other people
and believing that they have
feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and
intentions of their own.

18. Mentalizing
• Mentalizing is connected to
the ability to make both
first and third person views
(what I am doing and what
the others are doing).

19. Theory of mind
• The “simulation theory” states
that children simulate in their
minds another person's actions and
intentions.
• The “theory theory” assumes that
children innately develop theories
about the world and other people
and try to verify them in reality.

20. Attachment styles
Attachment styles are fundamental personality
traits (remain more or less the same throughout life):
• persons with the secure attachment style are
positive and confident
• persons with anxious attachment style are
afraid of rejection in all possible situations
• persons with avoidant attachment style prefer
distance, do not appreciate affective signals,
and rate positive pictures less positive than
do other people

21. Gaze
• The direct eye gaze, the “key to
the door of the infant social
brain”, facilitates face
recognition and cortical processing
of faces as early as 4 months of
age.
• Joint attention with an adult
enhances the attentional processes
in 9 months old.

22. Nonverbal communication
• During social interaction, a person
is able to nonverbally transmit
attitudes and feelings via
gestures, actions, postures, and
expressions.
• Nonverbal social interaction
inevitably involves two-way
emotions and mirroring.

23. Human mirror-neuron system
• Certain cortical areas in humans
can be attributed to the mirror-
neuron system (MNS).
• They are activated during the
subject's own motor acts and also,
although weaker, while the subject
observes a similar act performed by
another person.

24. Literature:
Http://physrev.physiology.org:
• Riitta Hari, Miiamaaria V. Kujala.
Brain Basis of Human Social
Interaction: From Concepts to Brain
Imaging.
• http://www.psypost.org
• Medvizor.com
• Wikipedia.org
• www.operativeneurosurgery.com