Biomedical subjects

Jean Decety

Publications and source records attributed to Jean Decety.

31 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed2004

The neural bases of cooperation and competition: an fMRI investigation.

Cooperation and competition are two basic modes of social cognition that necessitate monitoring of both one's own and others' actions, as well as adopting a specific mental set. In this fMRI, study individuals played a specially designed computer game, according to a set of predefined rules, either in cooperation with or in competition against another person. The hemodynamic response during these conditions was contrasted to that of the same subjects playing the game independently. Both cooperation and competition stances resulted in activation of a common frontoparietal network subserving executive functions, as well as the anterior insula, involved in autonomic arousal. Moreover, distinct regions were found to be selectively associated with cooperation and competition, notably the orbitofrontal cortex in the former and the inferior parietal and medial prefrontal cortices in the latter. This pattern reflects the different mental frameworks implicated in being cooperative versus competitive with another person. In accordance with evidence from evolutionary psychology as well as from developmental psychology, we argue that cooperation is a socially rewarding process and is associated with specific left medial orbitofrontal cortex involvement.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

The functional architecture of human empathy.

Empathy accounts for the naturally occurring subjective experience of similarity between the feelings expressed by self and others without loosing sight of whose feelings belong to whom. Empathy involves not only the affective experience of the other person's actual or inferred emotional state but also some minimal recognition and understanding of another's emotional state. In light of multiple levels of analysis ranging from developmental psychology, social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and clinical neuropsychology, this article proposes a model of empathy that involves parallel and distributed processing in a number of dissociable computational mechanisms. Shared neural representations, self-awareness, mental flexibility, and emotion regulation constitute the basic macrocomponents of empathy, which are underpinned by specific neural systems. This functional model may be used to make specific predictions about the various empathy deficits that can be encountered in different forms of social and neurological disorders.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2003

What imitation tells us about social cognition: a rapprochement between developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience.

Both developmental and neurophysiological research suggest a common coding between perceived and generated actions. This shared representational network is innately wired in humans. We review psychological evidence concerning the imitative behaviour of newborn human infants. We suggest that the mechanisms involved in infant imitation provide the foundation for understanding that others are 'like me' and underlie the development of theory of mind and empathy for others. We also analyse functional neuroimaging studies that explore the neurophysiological substrate of imitation in adults. We marshal evidence that imitation recruits not only shared neural representations between the self and the other but also cortical regions in the parietal cortex that are crucial for distinguishing between the perspective of self and other. Imitation is doubly revealing: it is used by infants to learn about adults, and by scientists to understand the organization and functioning of the brain.

Child Development↗

PubMed2003

Shared representations between self and other: a social cognitive neuroscience view.

The abilities to identify with others and to distinguish between self and other play a pivotal role in intersubjective transactions. Here, we marshall evidence from developmental science, social psychology and neuroscience (including clinical neuropsychology) that support the view of a common representation network (both at the computational and neural levels) between self and other. However, sharedness does not mean identicality, otherwise representations of self and others would completely overlap, and lead to confusion. We argue that self-awareness and agency are integral components for navigating within these shared representations. We suggest that within this shared neural network the inferior parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex in the right hemisphere play a special role in interpersonal awareness.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2003

Neural correlates of feeling sympathy.

Positron emission tomography (PET) was used to investigate the neural correlates of feeling sympathy for someone else (i.e. the affinity, association, or relationship between persons wherein whatever affects one similarly affects the other). While undergoing PET scans, subjects were presented with a series of video-clips showing individuals (who were semi-professional stage actors) telling sad and neutral stories, as if they had personally experienced them. These stories were told with either congruent or incongruent motor expression of emotion (MEE). At the end of each movie, subjects were asked to rate the mood of the communicator and also how likable they found that person. Watching sad stories versus neutral stories was associated with increased activity in emotion processing-related structures, as well as in a set of cortical areas that belong to a "shared representation" network, including the right inferior parietal cortex. Motor expression of emotion, regardless of the narrative content of the stories, resulted in a specific regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) increase in the left inferior frontal gyrus. The condition of mismatch between the narrative content of the stories and the motor expression of emotion elicited a significant skin conductance response and strong rCBF increase in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and superior frontal gyrus which are involved in dealing with social conflict. Taken together, these results are consistent with a model of feeling sympathy that relies on both the shared representation and the affective networks. Interestingly, this network was not activated when subjects watched inappropriate social behavior.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Being the target of another's emotion: a PET study.

The eye region and gaze behaviour are known to play a major role in conveying information about direction of attention and emotional dispositions. Positron emission tomography scanning was used to explore the cerebral structures involved while subjects were asked to attribute hostile or friendly intentions to video-taped actors who directed attention towards or away from the subjects. As expected, a number of brain regions known to be involved in emotion processing was found activated when subjects had to attribute an emotion regardless of gaze direction. In addition, results indicate that gaze direction has an impact on the brain regions recruited to interpret emotions. The anterior region of the superior temporal gyrus (STG) was selectively activated during analysis of emotions through eye contact. This result provides neurophysiological evidence for privileged processing when an individual becomes personally involved as the object of another's emotions.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Abnormalities of brain function during a nonverbal theory of mind task in schizophrenia.

Theory of mind (ToM), the specific ability to attribute thoughts and feelings to oneself and others is generally impaired in schizophrenia. Previous studies demonstrated a deficit of the attribution of intentions to others among patients having formal thought disorder. During nonverbal tasks, such a function requires both the visual perception of human figures and the understanding of their intentions. These processes are considered to involve the superior temporal sulcus and the medial prefrontal cortex, respectively. Are the functional patterns of activation associated with those processes abnormal in schizophrenia? Seven schizophrenic patients on medication performed a nonverbal attribution of intentions task as well as two matched physical logic tasks, with and without human figures, while H2O15 PET-scanning was performed. Data from the patients were compared to those of eight healthy controls matched for verbal IQ and sex. The experimental design allowed dissociating the effect of the perception of human figures from that of the attribution of intentions. During attribution of intentions, significant activations in the right prefrontal cortex were detected in the control subjects. Those activations were not found in the schizophrenic group. However, in both groups, the perception of human figure elicited bilateral activation of the occipitotemporal regions and of the posterior part of the superior temporal sulcus. Schizophrenic patients performing a nonverbal attribution of intentions task have an abnormal cerebral activity.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

When the self represents the other: a new cognitive neuroscience view on psychological identification.

There is converging evidence from developmental and cognitive psychology, as well as from neuroscience, to suggest that the self is both special and social, and that self-other interaction is the driving force behind self-development. We review experimental findings which demonstrate that human infants are motivated for social interactions and suggest that the development of an awareness of other minds is rooted in the implicit notion that others are like the self. We then marshall evidence from functional neuroimaging explorations of the neurophysiological substrate of shared representations between the self and others, using various ecological paradigms such as mentally representing one's own actions versus others' actions, watching the actions executed by others, imitating the others' actions versus being imitated by others. We suggest that within this shared neural network the inferior parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex in the right hemisphere play a special role in the essential ability to distinguish the self from others, and in the way the self represents the other. Interestingly, the right hemisphere develops its functions earlier than the left.

Awareness↗

PubMed2003

What you believe versus what you think they believe: a neuroimaging study of conceptual perspective-taking.

Social communication requires shared representations as well as a cognitive flexibility for successful interactions between self and other. What neural mechanisms underlie the ability to distinguish between our own perspective vs. the perspective of others at a conceptual level? In this PET study subjects who were medical students were asked according to the experimental conditions to respond to a list of health-related questions, taking either their own perspective or the perspective of a 'lay person'. Third-person perspective as compared to first-person perspective was associated with activation in the medial part of the superior frontal gyrus, in the left superior temporal sulcus, in the left temporal pole and in the right inferior parietal lobe. The reverse comparison revealed a specific activation in the postcentral gyrus for the first-person conceptual perspective. This study provides congruent results at the conceptual level with previous studies investigating the neural correlates of self/other distinction at the motor level, and opens a new area of research in which conceptual cognition can be viewed in the continuity of motor cognition.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Leader or follower? Involvement of the inferior parietal lobule in agency.

Agency is the sense that I am the one generating an action. In this neuroimaging experiment, subjects controlled a circle with a mouse while requested either to lead another circle (i.e., being the agent) or to follow it (i.e., being acted upon). Clusters within the right intraparietal sulcus were associated with following for the most rostral and leading for the most caudal ones. Bilateral activity in the inferior parietal lobule in conditions involving confusion about the origin of the action confirmed its role in agency. A lateralization effect was also found in these conditions, the response being stronger in the left inferior parietal lobule when subjects were not the agent of the performed action, and in the right when they were.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Does the end justify the means? A PET exploration of the mechanisms involved in human imitation.

Imitation is a natural mechanism involving perception-action coupling which plays a foundational role in human development, in particular to extract the intention from the surface behavior exhibited by others. The aim of this H(15)(2)O PET activation experiment was to investigate the neural basis of imitation of object-oriented actions in normal adults. Experimental conditions were derived from a factorial design. The factors were: (a) is the stimulus event shown to subjects during observation of the model and (b) is the response manipulation performed by the subject. Two key components of human action, the goal and the means to achieve it, were systematically investigated. The results revealed partially overlapping clusters of increased regional cerebral blood flow in the right dorsolateral prefrontal area and in cerebellum when subjects imitated either of the two components. Moreover, specific activity was detected in the medial prefrontal cortex during the imitation of the means, whereas imitating the goal was associated with increased activity in the left premotor cortex. Our results suggest that for normally functioning adults, imitating a gesture activates neural processing of the intention (or goal) underlying the observed action.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Distinct areas in parietal cortex involved in long-term and short-term action planning: a PET investigation.

The sequential organization of events within a script, can be considered as a means to explore the cognitive mechanisms involved in action planning. Scripts are composed of goal-oriented sequences of events that typically occur in a specific and systematic order. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of temporal variation between script events (short-term versus long-term) on neural activity in normal volunteers. Subjects were required to judge whether the chronological order of three events was correct or not, while regional cerebral blood flow was measured using positron emission tomography. The modality of script presentation (graphic versus lexical) was manipulated. In the left hemisphere, the supramarginal gyrus, the middle frontal gyrus, the inferior temporal gyrus, and the middle occipital gyrus were more activated in the short-term script conditions, while the angular gyrus, the medial superior frontal gyrus, the precuneus bilaterally, the anterior cingulate gyrus and the inferior and middle temporal gyrus on the left were more involved during long-term scripts processing. The occipito-temporal junction (MT/V5) was significantly more activated in the graphic conditions as compared to the lexical ones, and in the short-term scripts conditions as compared to the long-term ones although all stimuli were static. Our results support the notion that two distinct frontal-parietal networks are engaged in short-term and long-term script processing. In addition, our study demonstrates two kinds of dissociations in the parietal lobe. A macro-dissociation between the anterior and the posterior portion of the inferior parietal lobe was found which accounts for processing short-term and long-term scripts respectively, as well as a micro-dissociation in each of these regions which is associated with distinct processing depending on the presentation modalities. These results may help to better understand apraxia at the neurophysiological level.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

How would you feel versus how do you think she would feel? A neuroimaging study of perspective-taking with social emotions.

Perspective-taking is a complex cognitive process involved in social cognition. This positron emission tomography (PET) study investigated by means of a factorial design the interaction between the emotional and the perspective factors. Participants were asked to adopt either their own (first person) perspective or the (third person) perspective of their mothers in response to situations involving social emotions or to neutral situations. The main effect of third-person versus first-person perspective resulted in hemodynamic increase in the medial part of the superior frontal gyrus, the left superior temporal sulcus, the left temporal pole, the posterior cingulate gyrus, and the right inferior parietal lobe. A cluster in the postcentral gyrus was detected in the reverse comparison. The amygdala was selectively activated when subjects were processing social emotions, both related to self and other. Interaction effects were identified in the left temporal pole and in the right postcentral gyrus. These results support our prediction that the frontopolar, the somatosensory cortex, and the right inferior parietal lobe are crucial in the process of self/other distinction. In addition, this study provides important building blocks in our understanding of social emotion processing and human empathy.

Adult↗