Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA; The Laboratory of Neural Systems, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA.
Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA; Department of Psychology, University of Turin, 10124 Torino, Italy.
Neuron. 2024 Aug 7;112(15):2631-2644.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2024.05.004. Epub 2024 May 31.
Neurons from multiple prefrontal areas encode several key variables of social gaze interaction. To explore the causal roles of the primate prefrontal cortex in real-life gaze interaction, we applied weak closed-loop microstimulations that were precisely triggered by specific social gaze events. Microstimulations of the orbitofrontal cortex, but not the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex or the anterior cingulate cortex, enhanced momentary dynamic social attention in the spatial dimension by decreasing the distance of fixations relative to a partner's eyes and in the temporal dimension by reducing the inter-looking interval and the latency to reciprocate the other's directed gaze. By contrast, on a longer timescale, microstimulations of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex modulated inter-individual gaze dynamics relative to one's own gaze positions. These findings demonstrate that multiple regions in the primate prefrontal cortex may serve as functionally accessible nodes in controlling different aspects of dynamic social attention and suggest their potential for a therapeutic brain interface.
来自多个前额区域的神经元对社交注视互动的几个关键变量进行编码。为了探索灵长类前额叶皮层在真实社交注视互动中的因果作用，我们应用了弱闭环微刺激，这些刺激是由特定的社交注视事件精确触发的。眶额皮层的微刺激，而不是背内侧前额叶皮层或前扣带皮层的微刺激，通过减少相对于伙伴眼睛的注视距离，在空间维度上增强了瞬间的动态社交注意力，在时间维度上通过减少注视间的间隔和延迟来回应对方的注视。相比之下，在更长的时间尺度上，背内侧前额叶皮层的微刺激调节了相对于自身注视位置的个体间注视动态。这些发现表明，灵长类前额叶皮层的多个区域可能作为控制动态社交注意力不同方面的功能可及节点，并暗示它们具有治疗性脑接口的潜力。
