Deciphering social interactions on the basis of whole-body motion analysis: an fMRI study in children

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Deciphering social interactions on the basis of whole-body motion analysis: an fMRI study in children Christina Schmitz1*, Laurie Centelles2 and Christine Assaiante2 1 Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, France 2 CNRS UMR 6149, France The ability to socially interact builds up during childhood with the development of verbal and non-verbal communication, theory of mind and intention understanding. Body movements provide multiple social cues. Under certain circumstances, they constitute the only support that allows the grasping of a social content. Based on a method that enables to study human movement features, i.e. using point-lights (Johansson, 1973), we recently explored the brain circuits involved in the understanding of a social interaction when its content is extracted from human motion only. We highlighted the simultaneous recruitment of two networks: the mentalizing and the action-perception matching networks (Centelles et al., 2011). Here we present a developmental study exploring the maturation of these circuits. We elaborated silent point-light animations showing two actors depicted by twenty white dots. The two actors were either engaged in a social interaction (SI condition) or neutrally moving side by side (NSI condition). Thirteen children (aged 8-11) lying in a 3-T whole-body imager were proposed to categorize these animations while fMRI was used to record brain activity. Increased activity was found in the dorsal part of the medial prefrontal cortex and bilaterally in the inferior frontal gyrus in the SI condition as compared to the NSI condition. In the temporal lobe, important clusters covered the right anterior superior temporal sulcus and the temporo-parietal junction bilaterally. These results indicate that the mentalizing and the action-perception matching networks were also recruited in children performing the same task. Our findings suggest that the ability to understand social interactions early during childhood, together with an early build up of the underlying brain networks. Funding: Supported by doctoral fellowship from the Orange Foundation to L.C. Keywords: emotion, fMRI Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Sessions: Emotion, Motivation and the Social Brain Citation: Schmitz C, Centelles L and Assaiante C (2011). Deciphering social interactions on the basis of whole-body motion analysis: an fMRI study in children. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00497 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 22 Nov 2011; Published Online: 28 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Christina Schmitz, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Lyon, France, christina.schmitz@inserm.fr Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Christina Schmitz Laurie Centelles Christine Assaiante Google Christina Schmitz Laurie Centelles Christine Assaiante Google Scholar Christina Schmitz Laurie Centelles Christine Assaiante PubMed Christina Schmitz Laurie Centelles Christine Assaiante Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.