The Original Social Network: White Matter and Social Cognition

Social neuroscience has traditionally focused on the functionality of gray matter regions, ignoring the critical role played by axonal fiber pathways in supporting complex social processes. In this paper, we argue that research on white matter is essential for understanding a range of topics in soci...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Trends in cognitive sciences 2018-06, Vol.22 (6), p.504-516
Main Authors: Wang, Yin, Olson, Ingrid R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Brain - anatomy & histology
Brain - diagnostic imaging
Cognition
diffusion-weighted imaging
Humans
Neural Pathways - anatomy & histology
Neural Pathways - diagnostic imaging
Social Behavior
social cognition
social disorder
social neuroscience
structural connectivity
white matter
White Matter - anatomy & histology
White Matter - diagnostic imaging
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Summary:Social neuroscience has traditionally focused on the functionality of gray matter regions, ignoring the critical role played by axonal fiber pathways in supporting complex social processes. In this paper, we argue that research on white matter is essential for understanding a range of topics in social neuroscience, such as face processing, theory of mind, empathy, and imitation, as well as clinical disorders defined by aberrant social behavior, such as prosopagnosia, autism, and schizophrenia. We provide practical advice on how best to carry out these studies, which ultimately will substantially deepen our understanding of the neurobiological basis of social behavior. Historically, social neuroscience research has adopted a topological (brain regions) rather than a hodological (neural pathways) approach. However the field is currently moving away from modularism to connectomics. White matter structures have been well characterized for nonsocial cognition, but our current knowledge about white matter tracts underlying social cognition is limited. Healthy white matter is essential for social information processing. Minor white matter abnormalities can cause severe social impairments. Methods used to measure gray matter and white matter (e.g., functional and diffusion MRI) can be complementarily integrated to gain a more complete understanding of the neurobiology of social cognition. Multimodal imaging of the social brain connectome is the future of social neuroscience.
ISSN:1364-6613
1879-307X
DOI:10.1016/j.tics.2018.03.005