Default Mode Network Connectivity Predicts Emotion Recognition and Social Integration After Traumatic Brain Injury

Moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) may result in difficulty with emotion recognition, which has negative implications for social functioning. As aspects of social cognition have been linked to resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) in the default mode network (DMN), we sought to determine whether DMN connectivity strength predicts emotion recognition and level of social integration in TBI. To this end, we examined emotion recognition ability of 21 individuals with TBI and 27 healthy controls in relation to RSFC between DMN regions. Across all participants, decreased emotion recognition ability was related to increased connectivity between dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and temporal regions (temporal pole and parahippocampal gyrus). Furthermore, within the TBI group, connectivity between dmPFC and parahippocampal gyrus predicted level of social integration on the Community Integration Questionnaire, an important index of post-injury social functioning in TBI. This finding was not explained by emotion recognition ability, indicating that DMN connectivity predicts social functioning independent of emotion recognition. These results advance our understanding of the neural underpinnings of emotional and social processes in both healthy and injured brains, and suggest that RSFC may be an important marker of social outcomes in individuals with TBI.