Interplay Between the Salience and the Default Mode Network in a Social-Cognitive Task Toward a Close Other

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Social Psychology
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Social cognition involves understanding others via distinct socio-cognitive (mentalizing) and socio-affective (empathy) subsystems.
• The default mode network (DMN) supports mentalizing, while the salience network (SN) supports empathy.
• These resting-state networks are foundational for social task performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate functional connectivity (FC) patterns of the DMN and SN during the transition from rest to social task performance.
• To examine how FC within these networks changes when individuals engage with social stimuli, specifically emotional videos of their romantic partner.
• To explore the interplay between the DMN and SN during self-referential and other-referential social processing.

Main Methods:

• fMRI was used to acquire resting-state and task-based data from 38 participants in romantic relationships.
• Participants watched emotional videos of their partner and focused on their partner's (Other condition) or their own (Self condition) experience.
• Independent component analysis and ROI-to-ROI correlation analysis assessed task-independent and task-dependent FC.

Main Results:

• Both DMN and SN maintained their characteristic spatial FC maps across resting and task conditions.
• The DMN showed increased FC in anterior and posterior regions during social task performance compared to rest.
• The SN exhibited reduced connectivity in the Other condition compared to Self and Rest conditions, indicating network interplay.

Conclusions:

• The DMN and SN exhibit dynamic FC alterations reflecting engagement in social cognition.
• Increased DMN connectivity supports enhanced mentalizing during social tasks.
• The interplay between DMN and SN nodes is crucial for processing self and other perspectives in social contexts.