Przysinda Emily, Shovestul Bridget, Saxena Abhishek, Dong Xiaoyu, Reda Stephanie, Dudek Emily, Lamberti J Steven, Lalor Edmund, Dodell-Feder David
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY 14642, United States.
Department of Neuroscience, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642, United States.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2024 Dec 25;19(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsae094.
Individuals with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) have difficulties with social information processing, including mental state attribution, or "theory of mind" (ToM). Prior work has shown that these difficulties are related to disruption to the neural network subserving ToM. However, few such studies utilize naturalistic stimuli that are more representative of daily social interaction. Here, SSD and non-SSD individuals underwent fMRI while watching The Office to better understand how the ToM network responds to dynamic and complex social information, such as socially awkward moments. We find that medial prefrontal cortex tracks less with moment-to-moment awkwardness in SSD individuals. We also find a broad decrease in functional connectivity in the ToM network in SSD. Furthermore, neural response during awkward moments and functional connectivity was associated with psychotic experiences and social functioning. These results suggest that during naturalistic, socially awkward moments where mental state attribution is critical, individuals with SSD fail to recruit key regions of the ToM network, possibly contributing to decreased social understanding and impaired functioning.
患有精神分裂症谱系障碍（SSD）的个体在社会信息处理方面存在困难，包括心理状态归因，即“心理理论”（ToM）。先前的研究表明，这些困难与支持心理理论的神经网络中断有关。然而，很少有此类研究使用更能代表日常社会互动的自然主义刺激。在这里，SSD个体和非SSD个体在观看《办公室》时接受了功能磁共振成像（fMRI），以更好地了解心理理论网络如何应对动态和复杂的社会信息，比如社交尴尬时刻。我们发现，内侧前额叶皮层在SSD个体中与瞬间尴尬的同步性较低。我们还发现，SSD个体的心理理论网络中的功能连接广泛减少。此外，尴尬时刻的神经反应和功能连接与精神病体验及社会功能有关。这些结果表明，在自然主义的、社交尴尬时刻（此时心理状态归因至关重要），SSD个体无法调动心理理论网络的关键区域，这可能导致社会理解能力下降和功能受损。
