Interest in psychedelic drugs has increased rapidly because of their potential therapeutic role in psychiatric disorders. Impairments in the sociocognitive skills needed to build and maintain social relationships are prominent features of many psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. Emerging evidence suggests that compounds such as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and psilocybin may influence these impairments. This review aimed to determine whether psychedelic drugs may modulate social cognition in individuals with psychiatric or neurodevelopmental disorders associated with cognitive impairment. A search of the MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and Scopus databases was conducted. Twenty studies were identified that evaluated the effects of ketamine, MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca in depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Findings included neural activation patterns suggesting that ketamine and psilocybin may modulate processes relevant to social perception, particularly facial emotion processing, in depressive disorders. Positive findings were also reported for MDMA in participants with PTSD, including improvements in self-reported psychosocial functioning, self-awareness, and self-compassion. Current evidence suggests that psychedelic drugs may modulate processes relevant to social cognition in psychiatric disorders, although direct evidence of improved social-cognitive functioning remains limited. Not applicable.

Oxytocin mediates self-other and inevitability asymmetries in high-conflict moral judgment in schizophrenia.

Constructing and expressing the story world: neural correlates of narrative generation.

This study examines oligarchic political discourse in Tempo.co’s Bocor Alus Politik podcast episode “Pertamina and Riza Chalid’s Political Network.” It investigates how political–economic power relations are represented in media narratives when discussing Indonesia’s energy governance, particularly regarding fuel imports, policy “conditioning,” and elite networks. The research employs a descriptive qualitative design and Teun A. van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis framework, focusing on the dimensions of text, social cognition, and social context. The findings show that the podcast constructs oligarchy as a mode of power operating beyond formal state institutions through interconnected political and business actors that mutually reinforce protection and access. Riza Chalid is framed not merely as a businessman but as an informal political actor perceived to influence national energy policy and the distribution of rents. Evaluative lexical choices such as “Gasoline Godfather,” “old modus,” and the metaphor “out of the tiger’s mouth into the crocodile’s jaws” function to sharpen criticism that the issue is not reducible to individual wrongdoing, but rooted in structural continuity and the reproduction of networks. These results align with Jeffrey A. Winters’s concept of oligarchy as income defense, in which political power is used to secure wealth accumulation and protection by a narrow elite. Practically, the podcast as a digital platform operates as a space of counter-discourse, expanding public understanding of the nexus between media, power, and energy politics.

Predictors of gains in social functioning after cognitive remediation in schizophrenia: Results from the multicenter ISST (Integrated Social Cognition and Social Skills Therapy) trial.

Sleep deprivation (SD) is a critical risk factor for cognitive decline and is closely linked to psychiatric disorders. The hippocampal CA2 region is critically involved in encoding social memory and regulating emotional behavior, and it has been implicated in various neuropsychiatric conditions. However, how SD affects CA2-dependent synaptic plasticity and related behaviors remains poorly understood. Here, we subjected mice to 5 h of SD via gentle handling and examined synaptic plasticity, molecular signaling, and social recognition memory. Electrophysiological recordings revealed that SD markedly impaired long-term potentiation (LTP) in CA2 and disrupted social recognition memory, as evidenced by failure to distinguish novel from familiar conspecifics. These deficits were accompanied by upregulation of adenosine A1 receptors and PDE4A5, along with reduced expression of plasticity-related proteins including PKMζ, ERK, and BDNF. Moreover, caffeine-induced synaptic potentiation was diminished in SD mice, whereas caffeine supplementation reversed both synaptic and behavioral impairments. Together, these findings demonstrate that SD compromises CA2-dependent plasticity and social cognition through adenosine receptor signaling and identify CA2 as a vulnerable, therapeutically relevant region. Targeting adenosine pathways may represent a novel strategy to mitigate sleep loss-related cognitive dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disorders.

The oxytocin system is central to regulating social behaviors, with genetic variations in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR), particularly the rs53576 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), linked to individual differences in emotional reactivity and social cognition. GG genotype carriers typically show heightened sensitivity to social dynamics, exhibiting greater empathy and prosocial behaviors in positive contexts but also increased anxiety and emotional dysregulation in response to negative social stressors, such as ostracism. Although these associations are well established in adults, little is known about the impact of genetic variability in the oxytocin system on infants' behavioral and emotional reactivity to ostracism experiences. The current study investigated whether rs53576 allelic variations influence 13-month-olds' (N=56, 41% males; mostly White) affective and behavioral reactions to ostracism episodes during a live-triadic ball-tossing game. Results demonstrated that GG carriers show heightened sensitivity to ostracism compared to AA/AG carriers. Specifically, ostracized GG infants exhibited a more pronounced decrease in Positive Emotionality and an increase in Negative Emotionality. Current findings underscore the role of genetic predispositions in enhancing sensitivity to social experiences, shaping infants' early interactions within their social environment.

People with long-term psychiatric disorders often display complex behaviours that cannot be fully explained by existing categories in diagnostic classification systems. As a result, translating such symptom profiles into truly person-centred and recovery-oriented care remains a challenge. This article explores how symptom-focused observation through transdiagnostic dimensions can be integrated within person-centred psychiatric nursing, and oriented toward meaning-making and recovery. A narrative literature approach was used, based on an analysis of theoretical frameworks such as the Research Domain Criteria and practical insights from psychiatric nursing. Structuring behaviour along symptom dimensions such as affect regulation or social cognition provides tools for understanding so-called 'challenging behaviour'. Nurses play a key role in this process, as they interpret symptoms based on individual context, values and needs. Symptom-based approaches only become meaningful when linked to idiographic interpretation. This enhances a recovery-oriented and relational model of person-centred care. Observation instruments such as the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire may support nurses in interpreting symptoms, provided they are embedded within relational attunement. Nurses should be recognised as key actors in translating symptom profiles into person-centred interventions within multidisciplinary teams. The analysis is theoretical in nature; practical application requires further empirical validation.

Perinatal stress as a moderator of the effects of hormonal dysregulation on cognition and symptoms in early psychosis.

Atypical neural synchronization in the temporal gyrus during face processing in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Social determinants of health (SDoHs) are increasingly recognized as important contributors to the development, course, and outcomes of psychiatric disorders. However, their integration into clinical psychiatry and mechanistic models remains limited. This overview synthesizes emerging evidence on the biopsychosocial mechanisms through which SDoHs influence mental health. There is a need to distinguish between individual-level, clinically actionable health-related social needs and family-, community-, and society-level structural SDoHs, and to consider both adverse and protective social factors. Converging research demonstrates that social experiences are biologically embedded through interacting pathways, including exposomics, epigenetics, allostatic load, accelerated inflammaging, immune dysregulation, and gut-brain-microbiome signaling. These mechanisms influence neural circuitry underlying stress regulation, reward processing, and social cognition. Psychological processes-including individual differences in resilience, wisdom, compassion, and purpose in life-shape responses to SDoHs and are supported by identifiable neurobiological substrates. Social connection has emerged as a central, potentially modifiable SDoH that is strongly associated with whole health and longevity. Loneliness and social isolation have become major global public health challenges. The authors propose a biopsychosocial framework that integrates social exposures, biological mechanisms, neural systems, and psychological processes to better understand the risk, course, and prevention of mental illnesses. Clinical and public health implications include the need for routine assessment of SDoHs, incorporation of protective factors at individual and societal levels, and development of pragmatic, multidomain interventions. Finally, rapidly evolving digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, offer new opportunities but also require careful governance. Advancing toward human-centered "artificial wisdom" may enhance the capacity of technology to promote whole health in individuals with mental illnesses globally.

Complex emotion recognition in neurological and neurodevelopmental conditions.

Navigating complex social environments requires understanding how individuals are connected within social networks. People are highly efficient at integrating dyadic relationships into larger network structures. However, social networks are embedded within different types of groups (e.g., task groups vs. social categories), raising the question of how group typology shapes the learning and representation of social networks. Across four experiments, we demonstrate that group-related network schemas-specifically, expectations that task groups are more interconnected and centralized than social categories-systematically guide social network learning and representation. Participants exhibited prior expectations about the relational structure of different group types, and memory for social relationships was enhanced when the learned network structure aligned with these schematic expectations, producing a matching effect that was correlated with schema strength (Experiment 1). This effect was causally driven by schema strength: Weakening group-related schemas through explicit descriptions attenuated the matching effect (Experiment 2). Critically, the effect was domain specific: When social relationships were replaced with nonsocial connections (airport-flight networks), the matching effect disappeared despite comparable structural properties and task demands (Experiment 3). Computational modeling using the Successor Representation framework further revealed that schema-structure misalignment reduced multistep abstraction, reflected in lower successor discount parameters (γ), yielding less integrated global representations of social networks (Experiment 4). Together, these findings show that social network learning is guided by top-down group-related schemas. It advances our understanding of social network cognition by highlighting the importance of schema-driven abstraction and by bridging local learning mechanisms with global representational structure. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Alcohol use disorder and emotional processing patterns: Insights from a systematic review.

Mapping friendship: The foundations and origins of social network cognition

Facilitatory effects of visual perspective taking level 2 for human and robotic avatars.

The philosopher G.E. Moore first observed that making a statement and then denying that one knows or believes that statement is unacceptable. For example, It is raining, but I don't think that is defective. Across six experiments (n = 600), this study investigates the nature and extent of this unacceptability as a way to adjudicate between alternative theoretical explanations of this defectiveness. Results confirm that Moorean conjunctions are judged more acceptable than semantic contradictions (e.g., It is raining, but it isn't) but less so than felicitous conjunctions (e.g., It is raining, but it's okay), and this is so regardless of whether Moorean conjunctions are produced by a person or by an artificial agent such as ChatGPT. However, if the first conjunct is anchored on a perspective other than the speaker's, Moorean conjunctions increase in acceptability (e.g., The train arrives at noon, but I think it won't). Several features can drive this perspective-shift, yet the acceptability of Moorean conjunctions did not match that of felicitous sentences in our sample. Our findings support the view that the unacceptability is a byproduct of mindreading, a key part of the social cognition that is crucial to using and understanding language.

Neural dynamics during moral persuasion process: An EEG hyperscanning study.

Social anxiety is marked by a persistent fear of social scrutiny, yet its neurocognitive mechanisms remain incompletely understood. We tested whether social anxiety is associated with altered engagement of Theory of Mind (ToM) systems supporting inferences about others’ thoughts and emotions, or with broader interpretive tendencies biasing social information processing toward more internally guided responses. Functional MRI, heart rate, and pupil diameter were recorded from 43 individuals with elevated social anxiety and 43 low-anxiety controls during viewing of a nonverbal animated film. ToM engagement was assessed via scene-specific neural activation, while broader interpretive processing was indexed using dynamic intersubject correlation (ISC), quantifying the degree to which neural responses were shared versus idiosyncratic across viewers over time. Socially anxious participants showed reduced activation in the left posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) during ToM-relevant scenes, alongside preserved engagement of the broader ToM network. Dynamic ISC analyses revealed increased alignment in early sensory regions and reduced alignment in higher-order regions outside the ToM network, consistent with more individualized processing at higher levels. These effects occurred without group differences in autonomic arousal or pupil-linked attention, and an exploratory comparison with an autism cohort revealed opposite alignment patterns in overlapping higher-order regions. Social anxiety is associated with focal alterations in ToM-related processing and broader shifts in movie-driven neural alignment across the cortical hierarchy. Divergent alignment patterns in social anxiety and autism suggest that movie-driven neural alignment may serve as a transdiagnostic marker distinguishing mechanistically distinct forms of atypical social cognition.

How do traits and dispositional constructs relate to intentions and behavior? The trait-informed attitude, cognition, and intention tenet (TACIT).