Single-neuronal predictions of others’ beliefs in humans
Name
nihms-1654341.pdf
Description
Accepted version
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2.59 MB
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Author(s)
Jamali, Mohsen
Grannan, Benjamin L.
Fedorenko, Evelina
Saxe, Rebecca
Báez-Mendoza, Raymundo
Williams, Ziv M.
Date Issued
January 2021
Journal
Nature
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Jamali, Mohsen, Grannan, Benjamin L, Fedorenko, Evelina, Saxe, Rebecca, Báez-Mendoza, Raymundo et al. 2021. "Single-neuronal predictions of others’ beliefs in humans." Nature, 591 (7851).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
© 2021, Springer Nature Limited part of Springer Nature. Human social behaviour crucially depends on our ability to reason about others. This capacity for theory of mind has a vital role in social cognition because it enables us not only to form a detailed understanding of the hidden thoughts and beliefs of other individuals but also to understand that they may differ from our own1–3. Although a number of areas in the human brain have been linked to social reasoning4,5 and its disruption across a variety of psychosocial disorders6–8, the basic cellular mechanisms that underlie human theory of mind remain undefined. Here, using recordings from single cells in the human dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, we identify neurons that reliably encode information about others’ beliefs across richly varying scenarios and that distinguish self- from other-belief-related representations. By further following their encoding dynamics, we show how these cells represent the contents of the others’ beliefs and accurately predict whether they are true or false. We also show how they track inferred beliefs from another’s specific perspective and how their activities relate to behavioural performance. Together, these findings reveal a detailed cellular process in the human dorsomedial prefrontal cortex for representing another’s beliefs and identify candidate neurons that could support theory of mind.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03184-0
