Our work has used functional MRI in humans to investigate the prefrontal and basal ganglia mechanisms that support decision-making, reward processing, reinforcement learning, and action. These approaches have recently been used to study the neural basis of social cognition. Most recently, work has focussed on the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). We report that parts of the ACC signal the value of rewards gained by others during social interactions. Using reinforcement learning-based computational modelling, we have also found that certain regions of the ACC signal prediction errors vicariously for others’ erroneous predictions when scanned participants monitor and instruct learning in others. Funding: ESRC. Further details: http://www.pc.rhul.ac.uk/sites/NeuroscienceLab/?page_id=286
Related Projects
Amygdala response to faces: the interaction of attention and emotion
There is some uncertainty about the degree to which the amygdala automatically processes unattended faces; valence, perceptual load and location have all been implicated as being moderating factors. In this fMRI study we are manipulating unattended facial valence and position as well as attentional load in an attended task to determine the extent to which […]
Emotion, Development & Brain
How does emotional control develop during the adolescent years? How does the brain process and regulate emotional responses (both in adolescence and in adulthood). Is neural processing while performing specific emotional skills related to individual differences in behavioural traits such as aggression, psychopathy and anxiety? What are the implications for mental health? We combine cognitive […]
Individual differences in empathy associated with default mode network intrinsic connectivity variability
There is a remarkable overlap between the brain networks associated with empathy and spatial foci of the default mode network (DMN). In our current study we are examining whether individual differences in the core components of empathy are related to default mode network resting state functional connectivity (DMN RS FC).
Variation in the serotonin transporter gene and attention to threat
A number of separate studies have demonstrated an association between 5-HTTLPR polymorphisms and attentional bias to emotional information, amygdala response to attended threatening stimuli and trait anxiety. This has led to suggestions that threat bias and amygdala activation may be important endophenotypes in the anxiety disorders as they are putative intermediaries between serotonergic genotype and […]