The Neural Basis of Social Cognition in Typically Developing Children and Its Relationship to Social Functioning.

Sarah Hope Lincoln,Christine I Hooker,David Dodell-Feder,Cora M Mukerji,Arianna Riccio

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.714176

Abstract

Theory of mind (ToM), the ability to think about the perspectives, beliefs, and feelings of another, develops throughout childhood and adolescence and is an important skill for social interactions. This study examines neural activity in typically developing children during a novel ToM task – the Movie Mentalizing Task– and tests its relations to ToM behavioral performance and social functioning. In this fMRI task, children ages 8–13years (N=25) watched a brief movie clip and were asked to predict a character’s mental state after a social interaction. Engaging in the Movie Mentalizing Task activated the ToM neural network. Moreover, greater neural activity in the ToM network, including the superior temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus, was associated with better behavioral performance on independent ToM tasks and was related to better social functioning, though these results do not survive correction for multiple comparisons. Results offer a new affective theory of mind task for children in the scanner that robustly recruits activity in theory of mind regions.

Highlights

Theory of mind – the ability to reason about others’ mental states – is critical for effective social interaction and communication
We aimed to (1) identify the neural correlates of theory of mind activity in children using a novel, more ecological valid fMRI task and (2) test the relationship between neural activity during a theory of mind task and the behavioral correlates of social cognition and social functioning
We found that children ages 8–13 show increased activation in the theory of mind (ToM) network in response to thinking about mental states vs. general social information

Summary

Introduction

Theory of mind – the ability to reason about others’ mental states – is critical for effective social interaction and communication. Social-cognitive abilities like theory of mind (ToM) in childhood are associated with typically developing children’s adaptive social behavior (Caputi et al, 2012; Fink et al, 2015b; Devine et al, 2016). Deficits in social-cognitive ability are associated with negative outcomes including peer rejection and bullying in typically developing children (Banerjee et al, 2011; Shakoor et al, 2012). Understanding the neurobiological mechanisms that support these processes may offer important insight into typical and atypical patterns of social functioning among children. A handful of studies (e.g., Richardson et al, 2018; Mukerji et al, 2019) have bridged the gap between the neurobiology supporting ToM processing and social functioning in children. The following study addresses this gap in the literature by investigating the neural basis of ToM in typically developing school-aged

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