Behavioral and Social Neuroscience Research Group, CEITEC - Central European Institute of Technology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic; First Department of Neurology, Masaryk University, St. Anne's Faculty Hospital, Pekařská 53, Brno 656 91, Czech Republic.
Neuroimage. 2013 Dec;83:1024-30. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.07.063. Epub 2013 Aug 1.
Understanding the neural systems underpinning social cognition is a primary focus of contemporary social neuroscience. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the present study asked if brain activity reflecting socio-cognitive processes differs between individuals according to their social behavior; namely, between a group of drivers with frequent traffic offenses and a group with none. Socio-cognitive processing was elicited by employing videos from a traffic awareness campaign, consisting of reckless and anti-social driving behavior ending in tragic consequences, and control videos with analogous driving themes but without such catastrophic endings. We investigated whether relative increases in brain function during the observation of these campaign stimuli compared with control videos differed between these two groups. To develop the results of our previous study we focused our analyses on superior temporal sulcus/gyrus (STS/STG). This revealed a bigger increase in brain activity within this region during the campaign stimuli in safe compared with dangerous drivers. Furthermore, by thematically coding drivers' verbal descriptions of the stimuli, we also demonstrate differences in STS reactivity according to drivers' scores on two indices of socio-cognitive processing: subjects' perceived consequences of actors' actions, and their affective evaluation of the clips. Our results demonstrate the influence of social behavior and socio-cognitive processing on STS reactivity to social stimuli, developing considerably our understanding of the role of this region in social cognition.
理解支撑社会认知的神经系统是当代社会神经科学的主要焦点。本研究使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）技术，探讨了个体的社会行为是否会影响反映社会认知过程的大脑活动，即频繁违反交通规则的驾驶员群体和没有此类违规行为的驾驶员群体之间是否存在差异。通过播放一段来自交通安全宣传活动的视频来引发社会认知处理，该视频包含鲁莽和反社会的驾驶行为，最终导致悲惨后果，以及具有类似驾驶主题但没有此类灾难性结局的控制视频。我们研究了这两个群体在观察这些宣传活动刺激物与控制视频时，大脑功能的相对增加是否存在差异。为了进一步发展我们之前研究的结果，我们专注于分析上颞叶/脑回（STS/STG）。结果显示，在安全驾驶员中，与危险驾驶员相比，观察宣传活动刺激物时该区域的大脑活动增加更大。此外，通过对驾驶员对刺激物的口头描述进行主题编码，我们还根据驾驶员在两个社会认知处理指标上的得分，展示了 STS 反应的差异：参与者对行为者行为后果的感知，以及他们对片段的情感评价。我们的研究结果表明，社会行为和社会认知处理会影响 STS 对社会刺激的反应，从而极大地加深了我们对该区域在社会认知中的作用的理解。
