The Neural Basis of Social Knowledge

 描述（由申请人提供）：人类本质上是一种社会性物种。我们先进的社会情感技能被认为是我们巨大的文化进步和语言进化的基础。我们的上级社交技能是由对识别和获取有关他人的知识的熟练程度的提高所支撑的。社会知识的支持下，增加专业化的一些皮层区域参与面部处理，以及更高层次的区域参与连接传记知识，以及具体的面孔的激励价值。在我们先前的R01的更新中，我们建议扩展我们对前颞叶（ATLs）的工作，以检查一个更专门的人的知识回路。该回路涉及腹侧ATL（vATL）中的一个区域，当该区域受损时，会导致人的记忆缺陷。vATL面部补丁似乎是面部感知和人的记忆之间的接口，将不同身份的感知表征与抽象的人的知识联系起来。然而，这一区域并不是单独行动的。我们将使用多变量功能磁共振成像以及结构和功能连接分析来研究灵活的相互作用 与知觉系统、情景记忆系统和享乐评价系统的联系。这个项目的成功将大大推进我们对有助于高级社会处理的基本神经机制的理解，并将对自闭症谱系障碍和精神分裂症等具有核心社会知识缺陷的疾病具有重要的临床意义。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Humans are an intrinsically social species. Our advanced socio-emotional skills are thought to underpin our tremendous cultural advances as well as the evolution of language. Our superior social skills are underpinned by an increased proficiency in the identification of, and access to knowledge about other people. Social knowledge is supported by increased specialization in a number of cortical regions involved in face processing as well as higher-level regions involved in linking biographical knowledge as well as motivational value to specific faces. In this renewal of our prior R01, we propose to extend our work on the anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) to examine a more specialized circuit for person knowledge. This circuit involves a region in the ventral ATL (vATL) that when damaged, leads to person memory deficits. The vATL face patch appears to serve as an interface between face perception and person memory, linking perceptual representations of distinct identities with abstract person knowledge. However this region does not act alone. We will use multivariate fMRI as well as structural and functional connectivity analyses to examine the flexible interaction of this region with perceptual systems, episodic memory systems, and hedonic valuation systems. Success in this project will significantly advance our understanding of the basic neural mechanisms that contribute to high-level social processing and will have important clinical implications for disorders that have core social knowledge deficits such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia.