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| Open AccessVisuo-frontal interactions during social learning in freely moving macaques
Behavioural tracking and wireless neural and eye-tracking recordings show that freely moving macaques learn to cooprate using visually guided signals along the visual-frontal cortical network.
- Melissa Franch
- , Sudha Yellapantula
- & Valentin Dragoi
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Article |
A distinct cortical code for socially learned threat
Studies in mice show that observational fear learning is encoded by neurons in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in a manner that is distinct from the encoding of fear learned by direct experience.
- Shana E. Silverstein
- , Ruairi O’Sullivan
- & Andrew Holmes
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Article |
Cortical regulation of helping behaviour towards others in pain
A study describes the role of the anterior cingulate cortex in coding and regulating helping behaviour exhibited by mice towards others experiencing pain.
- Mingmin Zhang
- , Ye Emily Wu
- & Weizhe Hong
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Perspective |
Functional neuroimaging as a catalyst for integrated neuroscience
This Perspective reviews successful applications of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and presents a case for fMRI as a central hub on which to integrate the dispersed subfields of systems, cognitive, computational and clinical neuroscience.
- Emily S. Finn
- , Russell A. Poldrack
- & James M. Shine
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Article
| Open AccessPsychedelics reopen the social reward learning critical period
Behavioural electrophysiological and transcriptomic studies in mice show that psychedelic drugs reopen the social reward learning critical period and suggest that this involves reorganization of the extracellular matrix.
- Romain Nardou
- , Edward Sawyer
- & Gül Dölen
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Article |
Frontal neurons driving competitive behaviour and ecology of social groups
Wireless tracking of neuronal activity in social groups of mice identifies neurons in the anterior cingulate that hold representations of an animal’s social rank and can influence the competitive effort that the animal exerts.
- S. William Li
- , Omer Zeliger
- & Ziv M. Williams
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Article |
A speech planning network for interactive language use
Using intracranial electrocorticography and a series of motor tasks, a speech planning network that is central to natural language generation during social interaction is identified.
- Gregg A. Castellucci
- , Christopher K. Kovach
- & Michael A. Long
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Article |
Single-neuronal predictions of others’ beliefs in humans
Recordings of cells in the human dorsomedial prefrontal cortex identify a population of neurons that encode information about others’ beliefs and distinguish them from self-belief-related representations, providing insight into cellular-level processing underlying human theory of mind.
- Mohsen Jamali
- , Benjamin L. Grannan
- & Ziv M. Williams
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Article |
Boundary-anchored neural mechanisms of location-encoding for self and others
In real-world spatial navigation and observation tasks, oscillatory activity in the human brain encodes representations of self and others, with oscillatory power increasing at locations near the boundaries of the room.
- Matthias Stangl
- , Uros Topalovic
- & Nanthia Suthana
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Article |
The neuropeptide Pth2 dynamically senses others via mechanosensation
In zebrafish, the expression levels of the neuropeptide Pth2 change as exposure to conspecifics is limited or increased, and these changes track the presence of individuals and group density through mechanical stimulations induced by the movements of other fish.
- Lukas Anneser
- , Ivan C. Alcantara
- & Erin M. Schuman
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Article |
Shared yet dissociable neural codes across eye gaze, valence and expectation
The primate amygdala contains a shared neural circuitry for eye gaze and for valence; however, this circuitry implements two different neural codes—one for the outcome and another for the expectation of the outcome.
- Raviv Pryluk
- , Yosef Shohat
- & Rony Paz
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Letter |
Infant viewing of social scenes is under genetic control and is atypical in autism
Monozygotic twins show high concordance in eye- and mouth-looking, and this behaviour is markedly reduced in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder.
- John N. Constantino
- , Stefanie Kennon-McGill
- & Warren Jones
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Letter |
Dynamic corticostriatal activity biases social bonding in monogamous female prairie voles
In a prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) model of social bonding, a functional circuit from the prefrontal cortex to nucleus accumbens is dynamically modulated to enhance females’ affiliative behaviour towards a partner.
- Elizabeth A. Amadei
- , Zachary V. Johnson
- & Robert C. Liu
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Article |
Autism gene Ube3a and seizures impair sociability by repressing VTA Cbln1
Increasing expression of the autism-associated gene Ube3a, either alone or in combination with seizures, not only impairs sociability in mice but also reduces expression of the synaptic organizer Cbln1 in the ventral tegmental area, thus weakening glutamatergic transmission.
- Vaishnav Krishnan
- , David C. Stoppel
- & Matthew P. Anderson
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Article |
Social reward requires coordinated activity of nucleus accumbens oxytocin and serotonin
In male mice oxytocin acts as a social reinforcement signal within the nucleus accumbens (NAc) core, where it elicits a presynaptically expressed long-term depression (LTD) of excitatory synaptic transmission in medium spiny neurons; deletion of oxytocin receptors from the dorsal raphe nucleus, which provides serotonergic innervation of the NAc, and blockade of NAc serotonin 1B receptors both prevent oxytocin-induced LTD and social reward.
- Gül Dölen
- , Ayeh Darvishzadeh
- & Robert C. Malenka
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Research Highlights |
Social isolation thins neural sheath
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Letter |
Spontaneous giving and calculated greed
Economic games are used to investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying cooperative behaviour, and show that intuition supports cooperation in social dilemmas, whereas reflection can undermine these cooperative impulses.
- David G. Rand
- , Joshua D. Greene
- & Martin A. Nowak
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News Q&A |
How the brain views race
How do our brains respond when we see someone of a different ethnicity?
- Mo Costandi
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Brief Communications Arising |
New evidence on testosterone and cooperation
- Jack van Honk
- , Estrella R. Montoya
- & David Terburg
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Books & Arts |
Primate cognition: Copy that
The past decade has seen a revolution in our perception of primates' social brains, says Christian Keysers.
- Christian Keysers
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News |
Rats free each other from cages
Altruistic acts raise questions about whether the rodents feel empathy.
- Virginia Gewin
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Column |
The human touch
A little empathy goes a long way in the competitive confines of a laboratory, argues Lydia Soraya Murray.
- Lydia Soraya Murray
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News & Views |
Stress and the city
Many of us were raised or currently live in an urban environment. A neuroimaging study now reveals how this affects brain function when an individual is faced with a stressful situation. See Letter p.498
- Daniel P. Kennedy
- & Ralph Adolphs
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News |
City living marks the brain
Neuroscientists study social risk factor for mental illness.
- Alison Abbott
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Letter |
City living and urban upbringing affect neural social stress processing in humans
- Florian Lederbogen
- , Peter Kirsch
- & Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg
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Letter |
Earliest evidence of mammalian social behaviour in the basal Tertiary of Bolivia
- Sandrine Ladevèze
- , Christian de Muizon
- & Ricardo Cespedes-Paz
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Books & Arts |
Psychology: The empathy gap
Malfunctioning brain networks only partly explain why some people act cruelly, finds Stephanie Preston
- Stephanie Preston
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Books & Arts |
Neuroethics: The origins of morality
Our values may have biological roots, finds Adina Roskies, but we still need philosophy.
- Adina L. Roskies
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News |
Sex and violence linked in the brain
Cells lurking deep in the mouse hypothalamus help determine whether it fights or mates.
- Ewen Callaway
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Article |
Functional identification of an aggression locus in the mouse hypothalamus
Certain regions of the hypothalamus are important in aggression, but until recently, it has been difficult to specifically stimulate specific cell types within a mixed population of cells. Here, optogenetics is used to solve this specificity problem, finding that optogenetic stimulation of a subdivision within the ventromedial hypothalamus can elicit inappropriate attack behaviours in mice, but electrical stimulation does not produce the same result. Additional analysis of genetic and electrophysiological activity revealed overlapping neuronal subpopulations involved in fighting and mating, with potential competition between these behaviours, as neurons activated during aggression are inhibited during mating.
- Dayu Lin
- , Maureen P. Boyle
- & David J. Anderson
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News |
Women's tears contain chemical cues
Female weeping dampens sexual arousal in men.
- Janelle Weaver
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Books & Arts |
History: How to behave beyond the grave
Instructions for the afterlife from Ancient Egypt reveal a step change in moral psychology, discovers Andrew Robinson.
- Andrew Robinson
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Books & Arts |
Genes and development: The importance of childhood
Our emotional brains are shaped by social interactions during infancy, finds Morten Kringelbach.
- Morten Kringelbach
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Research Highlights |
Zoology: Cooperative flatworms
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News Feature |
Neuroscience: In their nurture
Can epigenetics underlie the enduring effects of a mother's love? Lizzie Buchen investigates the criticisms of a landmark study and the controversial field to which it gave birth.
- Lizzie Buchen
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News |
Children who form no racial stereotypes found
Brain disorder eradicates ethnic but not gender bias.
- Janelle Weaver
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Research Highlights |
Neuropsychology: Morality of murder
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Opinion |
How do morals change?
Emotions such as empathy and disgust might be at the root of morality, but psychologists should also study the roles of deliberation and debate in how our opinions shift over time, argues Paul Bloom.
- Paul Bloom
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Muse |
Morals don't come from God
The finding that religion scarcely influences moral intuition undermines the idea that a godless society will be immoral, says Philip Ball. Whether it 'explains' religion is another matter.
- Philip Ball