Dubey Souvik, Dubey Mahua Jana, Ghosh Ritwik, Mitchell Alex J, Chatterjee Subhankar, Das Shambaditya, Pandit Alak, Ray Biman Kanti, Das Gautam, Benito-León Julián
Department of Neuromedicine, Bangur Institute of Neurosciences, Kolkata, India.
Department of Psychiatry, Berhampore Mental Hospital, Murshidabad, India.
Med Res Arch. 2022 Mar;10(3). doi: 10.18103/mra.v10i3.2707. Epub 2022 Mar 30.
Epigenetics, hypothalamic-pituitary axes, environmental and metabolic influences, and transgenerational plasticity govern social behavior. Cognitive research considers the brain's default mode network (DMN) as a central hub that integrates various cognitive and social processing domains responsible for emotion perception, empathy, theory of mind, and morality. Hence, DMN is regarded as the "social brain." Upsurge in social turmoil, social anxiety, panic, depression, post-traumatic stress, hoarding, herd behavior, substance and behavioral addictions, sexual abuse, and violence in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic are intricately related to personality traits resulting in disruptive social cognition and social behavior, conceptualized as the result of unsettling and disruption of the functional nexus of the DMN. Considering overt and conspicuous display of neuroticism during the current pandemic, its impact upon modulation of the DMN functional nexus and the DMN itself, and the potential to presage cognitive impairment in the future, the authors caution that an increase in the global burden of dementia may be one of the long-term ramifications of COVID-19. Social behavior, a functional derivative of the DMN, can strikingly affect the functional nexus of DMN and the DMN itself, in a centripetal way via the phenomenon called "Experience-Dependent Plasticity," with long-term consequences. In this review, we intend to 1) decipher the association between social cognition and social behavior with the DMN, in time of COVID-19; and to 2) discuss the prospective aftermath of disrupted social behavior during the pandemic on modulation/alteration of functional connectomes of DMN or the DMN itself in the time ahead.
表观遗传学、下丘脑 - 垂体轴、环境和代谢影响以及跨代可塑性共同调控社会行为。认知研究将大脑的默认模式网络（DMN）视为一个核心枢纽，它整合了负责情绪感知、同理心、心理理论和道德的各种认知和社会加工领域。因此，DMN被视为“社会大脑”。在新冠疫情期间，社会动荡、社交焦虑、恐慌、抑郁、创伤后应激、囤积行为、群体行为、物质和行为成瘾、性虐待以及暴力行为的激增与人格特质密切相关，导致社会认知和社会行为受到干扰，这被认为是DMN功能联系的紊乱和破坏所导致的结果。考虑到在当前疫情期间神经质的明显表现、其对DMN功能联系和DMN本身调节的影响以及未来预示认知障碍的可能性，作者警告称，痴呆症全球负担的增加可能是新冠疫情的长期后果之一。社会行为作为DMN的一种功能衍生物，可以通过“经验依赖性可塑性”现象以向心的方式显著影响DMN的功能联系和DMN本身，并产生长期后果。在这篇综述中，我们打算：1）解读新冠疫情期间社会认知和社会行为与DMN之间的关联；2）讨论疫情期间社会行为紊乱对未来DMN功能连接组或DMN本身的调节/改变的预期后果。
