Functional and microstructural plasticity following social and interoceptive mental training.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Social Psychology

Background:

• The human brain's hierarchical organization underpins social cognition.
• The impact of social skill learning on brain structure and function is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how different social mental training types alter cortical function and microstructure.
• To explore the relationship between brain plasticity and social skill development.

Main Methods:

• Longitudinal study of 332 healthy adults using multimodal neuroimaging (cortical functional gradients, myelin-sensitive T1 relaxometry) and behavioral testing.
• Analysis of changes in cortical hierarchical organization following various social training interventions.

Main Results:

• Social mental training induced significant changes in cortical function and microstructure, varying by training content.
• Attention-mindfulness and socio-cognitive training altered function and microstructure in attention/interoception regions (insula, parietal cortex).
• Socio-affective and socio-cognitive training led to microstructural changes in interoceptive/emotional processing regions (insula, orbitofrontal cortex) without functional reorganization.
• Longitudinal brain changes predicted behavioral improvements in attention, compassion, and perspective-taking.

Conclusions:

• Social-interoceptive function training promotes functional and microstructural brain plasticity.
• Demonstrates a bidirectional relationship between brain organization and the refinement of human social skills.