The medial prefrontal cortex mediates social event knowledge

Abstract

Accumulating evidence from social neuroscience demonstrates that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is a crucial component of the neural systems mediating social event knowledge. Here, we present an integrative theory of the cognitive and neural bases of social event knowledge. The structural and temporal representation binding (STRing) theory assumes that the mPFC represents abstract dynamic summary representations in the form of event simulators (elators). Elators give rise to social event knowledge via binding with regions in the posterior cerebral cortex and limbic structures. We propose a segregation of elator functions along the dorso-ventral mPFC axis and review neuroscience evidence to support the specificity of elators as the underlying structures for the development of event, person and self schemata.