Conflicting evidence points to the contribution of several key nodes of the 'social brain' to the processing of both discriminatory and affective qualities of interpersonal touch. Whether the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), two brain areas vital for tactile mirroring and affective mentalizing, play a functional role in shared representations of C-tactile (CT) targeted affective touch is still a matter of debate. Here, we used offline continuous theta-burst Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (cTBS) to mPFC, S1 and Vertex (control) prior to participants providing ratings of vicarious touch pleasantness for self and others delivered across several body sites at CT-targeted velocities. We found that S1-cTBS led to a significant increase in touch ratings to the self, with this effect being positively associated to levels of interoceptive awareness. Conversely, mPFC-cTBS reduced pleasantness ratings for touch to another person. These effects were not specific for CT-optimal (slow) stroking velocities, but rather they applied to all types of social touch. Overall, our findings challenge the causal role of the S1 and mPFC in vicarious affective touch and suggest that self- vs. other-directed vicarious touch responses might crucially depend on the specific involvement of key social networks in gentle tactile interactions.

Social categories such as the race or ethnicity of an individual are typically conveyed by the visual appearance of the face. The aim of this study was to explore how these differences in facial appearance are represented in human and artificial neural networks. First, we compared the similarity of faces from different races using a neural network trained to discriminate identity. We found that the differences between races were most evident in the fully-connected layers of the network. Although these layers were also able to predict behavioural judgements of face identity from human participants, performance was biased toward White faces. Next, we measured the neural response in face-selective regions of the human brain to faces from different races in Asian and White participants. We found distinct patterns of response to faces from different races in face-selective regions. We also found that the spatial pattern of response was more consistent across participants for own-race compared to other-race faces. Together, these findings show that faces from different races elicit different patterns of response in human and artificial neural networks. These differences may underlie the ability to make categorical judgements and explain the behavioural advantage for the recognition of own-race faces.

Emotional reactivity to everyday events predicts happiness, but the neural circuits underlying this relationship remain incompletely understood. Here, we combined experience sampling methods and diffusion magnetic resonance imaging to examine the association among corticolimbic structural connectivity, real-world emotional reactivity, and daily experiences of happiness from 79 young adults (35 females). Participants recorded momentary assessments of emotional and happiness experiences five times a day for a week, approximately two weeks after brain scanning. Model-based emotional reactivity scores, which index the degree to which moment-to-moment affective state varies with the occurrence of positive or negative events, were computed. Results showed that stronger microstructural integrity of the uncinate fasciculus and the external capsule was associated with both greater positive and negative emotional reactivity scores. Relationship between these fiber tracts and experienced happiness was explained by emotional reactivity. Importantly, this indirect effect was observed for emotional reactivity to positive, but not negative real-world events. Our findings suggest that corticolimbic circuits supporting socioemotional functions are associated with emotional reactivity and happiness in the real world.

The aging process is associated with reduced emotional recognition (ER) performance. ER ability is an essential part of nonverbal communication, and its role is crucial for proper social functioning. Here, using the "Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience cohort sample", we investigated when ER, measured using a facial emotion recognition test, begins to consistently decrease along the lifespan. Moreover, using structural and functional MRI data, we identified the neural correlates associated with ER maintenance in the age groups showing early signs of ER decline (N=283; age range: 58-89 years). ER performance was positively correlated with greater volume in the superior parietal lobule, higher white matter integrity in the corpus callosum, and greater functional connectivity in the mid-cingulate area. Our results suggest that higher ER accuracy in older people is associated with preserved gray and white matter volumes in cognitive or interconnecting areas, subserving brain regions directly involved in emotional processing.

Emotion recognition (ER) declines with increasing age, yet little is known whether this observation bases on structural brain changes conveyed by differential atrophy. To investigate whether age-related ER decline correlates with reduced grey matter (GM) volume in emotion-related brain regions, we conducted a voxel-based morphometry analysis using data of the Human Connectome Project-Aging (N = 238, aged 36 - 87) in which facial ER was tested. We expected to find brain regions that show an additive or super-additive age-related change in GM volume indicating atrophic processes that reduce ER in older adults. The data did not support our hypotheses after correction for multiple comparisons. Exploratory analyses with a threshold of p < .001 (uncorrected), however, suggested that relationships between GM volume and age-related general ER may be widely distributed across the cortex. Yet, small effect sizes imply that only a small fraction of the decline of ER in older adults can be attributed to local GM volume changes in single voxels or their multivariate patterns.

Mate copying is a social learning process in which individuals gather public information about potential mates by observing models' choices. Previous studies have reported that individual attributes of female models affect mate copying, yet little is known about whether and how the group attributes of models influence mate copying. In the current behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, female participants were asked to rate their willingness to choose the depicted males as potential romantic partners before and after observing in-group or out-group female models accepting, rejecting or being undecided (baseline) about the males. Results showed that participants changed their ratings to align with the models' acceptance or rejection choices. Compared to rejection copying, the effect of acceptance copying was stronger and regulated by in- and out-group models, manifesting a discounting copying effect when learning from out-group models. At the neural level, for acceptance copying, stronger temporoparietal junction (TPJ) activity and connectivity between TPJ and anterior medial prefrontal cortex (amPFC) were observed when female models belonged to out-group members; meanwhile, the functional connection of TPJ and amPFC positively predicted the rating changes when learning from out-group models. The results indicated that participants might need more resources to infer out-group members' intentions to overcome the in-group bias during acceptance copying.

In recent decades, a substantial volume of work has examined the neural mechanisms of cognitive reappraisal. Distancing and reinterpretation are two frequently used tactics through which reappraisal can be implemented. Theoretical frameworks and prior evidence have suggested that the specific tactic through which one employs reappraisal entails differential neural and psychological mechanisms. Thus, we were motivated to assess the neural mechanisms of this distinction by examining the overlap and differentiation exhibited by the neural correlates of distancing (specifically via objective appraisal) and reinterpretation. We analyzed 32 published functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in healthy adults using multilevel kernel density analysis. Results showed that distancing relative to reinterpretation uniquely recruited right bilateral dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) and left posterior parietal cortex, previously associated with mentalizing, selective attention and working memory. Reinterpretation relative to distancing uniquely recruited left bilateral ventrolateral PFC (VLPFC), previously associated with response selection and inhibition. Further, distancing relative to reinterpretation was associated with greater prevalence of bilateral amygdala attenuation during reappraisal. Finally, a behavioral meta-analysis showed efficacy for both reappraisal tactics. These results are consistent with prior theoretical models for the functional neural architecture of reappraisal via distancing and reinterpretation and suggest potential future applications in region-of-interest specification and neural network analysis in studies focusing on specific reappraisal tactics.

The neurocognitive processes underlying Pavlovian conditioning in humans are still largely debated. The conventional view is that conditioned responses (CRs) emerge automatically as a function of the contingencies between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US). As such, the associative strength model asserts that frequency or amplitude of CRs reflects the strength of the CS-US associations. Alternatively, the expectation model asserts that the presentation of the CS triggers conscious expectancy of the US, which is responsible for the production of CRs. The present study tested the hypothesis that there are dissociable brain networks related to the expectancy and associative strength theories using a single-cue fear conditioning paradigm with a pseudo-random intermittent reinforcement schedule during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants' (n=21) trial-by-trial expectations of receiving shock displayed a significant linear effect consistent with the expectation model. We also found a positive linear relationship between the expectancy model and activity in frontoparietal brain areas including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and dorsomedial PFC (dmPFC). While an exploratory analysis found a linear relationship consistent with the associated strength model in the insula and early visual cortex, our primary results are consistent with the view that conscious expectancy contributes to conditioned responses.

Grit is a personality trait that encapsulates the tendency to persevere and maintain consistent interest for long-term goals. While prior studies found that grit predicts positive behavioral outcomes, there is a paucity of work providing explanatory evidence from a neurodevelopmental perspective. Based on previous research suggesting the utility of the functional connectome (FC) as a developmental measure, we tested the idea that individual differences in grit might be, in part, rooted in brain development in adolescence and emerging adulthood (N = 64, 11-19 years of age). Our analysis showed that grit was associated with connectome stability across conditions and connectome similarity across individuals. Notably, inter-subject representational similarity analysis revealed that teenagers who were grittier shared similar FC architecture with each other, more so than those with lower grit. Our findings suggest that individuals with high levels of grit are more likely to exhibit a converging pattern of whole-brain functional connectivity, which may underpin subsequent beneficial behavioral outcomes.

Are people willing to exert greater effort to obtain rewards for their children than they are for themselves? Although previous studies have demonstrated that social distance influences neural responses to altruistic reward processing, the distinction between winning rewards for oneself and winning them for one's child is unclear. In the present study, a group of 31 mothers performed a monetary incentive delay task in which cue-induced reward anticipations of winning a reward for themselves, their children and donation to a charity program were manipulated trial-wise, followed by performance-contingent feedback. Behaviorally, the anticipation of winning a reward for their children accelerated participants' responses. Importantly, the electroencephalogram results revealed that across the reward anticipation and consumption phases, the child condition elicited comparable or higher brain responses of participants than the self condition did. The source localization results showed that participants' reward anticipations for their children were associated with more activation in the social brain regions, compared to winning a reward for themselves or a charity donation. Overall, these findings advance our understanding of the neural mechanisms of altruistic reward processing and suggest that the priority of winning a reward for one's child may transcend the limits of the self-advantage effect in reward processing.