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Updated: Sep 6, 2025

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments
Published on: January 23, 2017
Attention to the other's body sensations modulates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex
Barbara Tomasino1, Cinzia Canderan1, Carolina Bonivento1
1Scientific Institute IRCCS 'Eugenio Medea', Polo FVG, Pasian di Prato (UD), Udine 33037, Italy.
Abstract:
Theory of Mind (ToM) is involved in experiencing the mental states and/or emotions of others. A further distinction can be drawn between emotion and perception/sensation. We investigated the mechanisms engaged when participants' attention is driven toward specific states. Accordingly, 21 right-handed healthy individuals performed a modified ToM task in which they reflected about someone's emotion or someone's body sensation, while they were in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. The analysis of brain activity evoked by this task suggests that the two conditions engage a widespread common network previously found involved in affective ToM (temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), parietal cortex, dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), medial- prefrontal cortex (MPFC), Insula). Critically, the key brain result is that body sensation implicates selectively ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). The current findings suggest that only paying attention to the other's body sensations modulates a self-related representation (VMPFC).
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