TY - JOUR

T1 - Alternative brain connectivity underscores age-related differences in the processing of interactive biological motion

AU - Walbrin, Jon

AU - Almeida, Jorge

AU - Koldewyn, Kami

N1 - no embargo upon publication

PY - 2023/5/17

Y1 - 2023/5/17

N2 - Rapidly recognizing and understanding others’ social interactions is an important ability that relies on deciphering multiple sources of information; for example, perceiving body information and inferring others’ intentions. Despite recent advances in characterizing the brain basis of this ability in adults, its developmental underpinnings are virtually unknown. Here, we used fMRI to investigate which sources of social information support superior temporal sulcus (STS) responses to interactive biological motion (i.e. 2 interacting point-light human figures) at different developmental intervals in human participants (of either sex): Children show supportive functional connectivity with key nodes of the mentalizing network, while adults show stronger reliance on regions associated with body- and dynamic social interaction/biological motion processing. We suggest that adults employ efficient action-intention understanding via body and biological motion information, while children show a stronger reliance on hidden mental-state inferences as a potential means of learning to better understand others’ interactive behavior.

AB - Rapidly recognizing and understanding others’ social interactions is an important ability that relies on deciphering multiple sources of information; for example, perceiving body information and inferring others’ intentions. Despite recent advances in characterizing the brain basis of this ability in adults, its developmental underpinnings are virtually unknown. Here, we used fMRI to investigate which sources of social information support superior temporal sulcus (STS) responses to interactive biological motion (i.e. 2 interacting point-light human figures) at different developmental intervals in human participants (of either sex): Children show supportive functional connectivity with key nodes of the mentalizing network, while adults show stronger reliance on regions associated with body- and dynamic social interaction/biological motion processing. We suggest that adults employ efficient action-intention understanding via body and biological motion information, while children show a stronger reliance on hidden mental-state inferences as a potential means of learning to better understand others’ interactive behavior.

KW - Social cognition

KW - Biological Motion

KW - Mentalising

KW - Social Interaction

KW - Development

KW - Connectivity

M3 - Article

VL - 43

SP - 3666

EP - 3674

JO - Journal of Neuroscience

JF - Journal of Neuroscience

SN - 0270-6474

IS - 20

ER -