Abstract
Predicting the behavior of others is a fundamental skill in primate social life. We tested the role of medial frontal cortex in the prediction of other agents’ behavior in two male macaques, using a monkey-human interactive task in which their actor-observer roles were intermixed. In every trial, the observer monitored the actor’s choice to reject it for a different one when he became the actor on the subsequent trial. In the delay period preceding the action, we identified neurons modulated by the agent’s identity, as well as a group of neurons encoding the agent’s future choice, some of which were neurons that showed differential patterns of activity between agents. The ability of these neurons to flexibly move from ‘self-oriented’ to ‘other-oriented’ representations could correspond to the “other side of the coin” of the simulative mirroring activity. Neurons that changed coding scheme, together with neurons exclusively involved in the prediction of the other agent’s choice, show a neural substrate for predicting or anticipating others’ choices beyond simulation.
Highlights
Social relationships are an integral part of everyday life among primates
We examined the role of areas 8 and 9 of the posterior part of the medial prefrontal cortex, at the level of single neurons, in the representation of others’ future behavior
We showed that the activity of neurons in part of the medial prefrontal cortex (pmPFC) reflected fundamental aspects of social interaction related to the prediction of others’ future actions
Summary
Social relationships are an integral part of everyday life among primates. A basic feature of social interaction is the ability to predict the behavior of other individuals. More recently has the research focus extended to the importance of self vs others’ action and reward differentiation, as well as monitoring[14], and neurons that respond to other’s actions separately from one’s own actions in both pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) and supplementary motor area (SMA) of monkeys[2] and in human SMA15 have been found. It remains unknown whether, in addition to action representation, these areas carry out predictive or anticipatory signals of others’ actions. We asked whether the same neurons involved in planning one’s own actions were involved in representing the future actions of others by a simulation process, or whether it depended on the activation of a separate neural network
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