Lecture 6 - An introduction to social neuroscience

The Social Brain: Critical Perspectives on Science, Society and Neurodiversity

Richard Ramsey

Today


Part 1

  • An introduction to social neuroscience


Part 2

  • Read articles and discuss



An introduction to social neuroscience

Overview


  • Aims, context and brief history

  • Neuroscience methods

  • The “Social Brain”

Social cognition


What is social cognition?

  • Cognition – a group of mental processes

  • Social – pertains to interacting with others

  • Social cognition – mental processes involved during interactions with others

Social neuroscience

Social cognition and social neuroscience are two related fields of research

They concern different levels of description Morton (2004):

  • cognitive
  • neural

This reflects the fact that mental processes, including social ones, have a biological basis in the brain

History


The emergence of social neuroscience Cacioppo & Berntson (1992).

John Cacioppo

See video - http://vimeo.com/7939053

From 25s to 1 min 25s

History

Key points


Humans create emergent organizations beyond the individual - structures that range from dyads, families, and groups to cities, civilizations, and international alliances.

Key points


These emergent structures evolved hand in hand with neural, hormonal, cellular, and genetic mechanisms to support them because the consequent social behaviors helped humans survive, reproduce, and care for offspring sufficiently long that they too survived to reproduce.

Key points

  • Previously, cognition comprised a “mental mansion” and the “social” aspect was irrelevant.
  • Things are changing…

Key points


  • There are many ways to study social neuroscience (hormonal, genetic, cellular, neural)
  • In this course we focus on the neural level

Neuroscience methods

Neuroscience methods overview

  1. Direct neuronal recordings
  2. ERPs - event related potentials
  3. fMRI – functional magnetic resonance imaging
  4. TMS – Transcranial magnetic stimulation

We will touch on these other techniques later:

  • Measuring behaviour – reaction times, error rates, movement patterns etc.
  • Variation across individuals and neuropsychology

Direct neuronal recordings

  • Rare in humans, except during brain surgery
  • More common in non-human animals


Advantages: precise temporal and spatial resolution

Disadvantages: rarely performed in humans and very invasive!!

ERPs

  • Indirect measure of electrical activity from the scalp


Advantages: precise temporal resolution, non-invasive

Disadvantages: indirect, poor spatial resolution

MRI and fMRI

Advantages: good spatial resolution (where in the brain)

Disadvantages: poor temporal resolution (when in the brain), expensive, noisy

TMS


  • A magnetic field pulse induces electric currents in the body/brain

  • If positioned on the head this current can excite the brain and create temporary disorder

TMS


Advantages: induces temporary “lesions” without permanent changes, good spatial and temporal resolution. Some researchers argue it can be used to establish causality


Disadvantages: only regions on the cortical surface can be stimulated, strict ethics, can be unpleasant for subjects, localisation uncertainty (i.e., spread of stimulation to many sites)

Neuroscience methods summary


  • Direct recordings - rare in humans (obviously)

  • ERPs - temporal (when in the brain)

  • fMRI - spatial (where in the brain)

  • TMS - causal* (*according to some people)

The “Social Brain”

The social brain

Background


  • Brothers (1990) coined the phrase ‘social brain’

  • How does the brain process social information?

  • How does the brain encode, retrieve and process social information in order to produce adaptive behaviour?

  • Key proponents: Chris and Uta Frith, Raplh Adolphs, Matthew Lieberman and many others

The social brain in action


  • Face recognition
  • Gaze
  • Emotion
  • Mental states
  • Trait inference
  • Imitation

Stranded on an alien planet…

  • Are there living beings?

  • Are they friendly or hostile?

  • Are they like you?

  • If you need help, will they cooperate and will you help them?

  • Your social brain can guide you …

(Frith & Frith, 2010)

Social brain circuits


(Adolphs, 2009; Stanley & Adolphs, 2013)

Today


Part 1

  • An introduction to social neuroscience


Part 2

  • Read articles and discuss



Take a break

Part 2 - Read and discuss

Discussion material


References

Adolphs, R. (2009). The Social Brain: Neural Basis of Social Knowledge. Annual Review of Psychology, 60(1), 693–716. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163514
Brothers, L. (1990). The Social Brain: A Project for Integrating Primate Behavior and Neurophysiology in a New Domain. Concepts in Neuroscience, 1, 27–51.
Cacioppo, J. T., & Berntson, G. G. (1992). Social Psychological Contributions to the Decade of the Brain - Doctrine of Multilevel Analysis. American Psychologist, 47(8), 1019–1028. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.47.8.1019
Frith, Uta., & Frith, C., D. (2010). The social brain: Allowing humans to boldly go where no other species has been. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 365(1537), 165–176. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0160
Morton, J. M. (2004). Understanding developmental disorders: A causal modelling approach. Blackwell.
Stanley, D. A., & Adolphs, R. (2013). Toward a Neural Basis for Social Behavior. Neuron, 80(3), 816–826. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0896627313009902
Ward, J. (2022). The Student’s Guide to Social Neuroscience (3rd ed.). Psychology Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003057697

Acknowledgements