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Updated: Mar 20, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Neural Correlates of Observing Virtual Social Interactions
Published on: July 6, 2011
Left inferior parietal lobe engagement in social cognition and language
Danilo Bzdok1, Gesa Hartwigsen2, Andrew Reid3
1Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, RWTH Aachen University, Germany; JARA, Translational Brain Medicine, Aachen, Germany; Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany; Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany; Parietal team, INRIA, Neurospin, bat 145, CEA Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
Abstract:
Social cognition and language are two core features of the human species. Despite distributed recruitment of brain regions in each mental capacity, the left parietal lobe (LPL) represents a zone of topographical convergence. The present study quantitatively summarizes hundreds of neuroimaging studies on social cognition and language. Using connectivity-based parcellation on a meta-analytically defined volume of interest (VOI), regional coactivation patterns within this VOI allowed identifying distinct subregions. Across parcellation solutions, two clusters emerged consistently in rostro-ventral and caudo-ventral aspects of the parietal VOI. Both clusters were functionally significantly associated with social-cognitive and language processing. In particular, the rostro-ventral cluster was associated with lower-level processing facets, while the caudo-ventral cluster was associated with higher-level processing facets in both mental capacities. Contrarily, in the (less stable) dorsal parietal VOI, all clusters reflected computation of general-purpose processes, such as working memory and matching tasks, that are frequently co-recruited by social or language processes. Our results hence favour a rostro-caudal distinction of lower- versus higher-level processes underlying social cognition and language in the left inferior parietal lobe.
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