Biology subjects

Basnakova, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Basnakova, J..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

Social Anxiety Alters Theory of Mind Activation and Intersubject Neural Variability During Movie Viewing

Social anxiety is characterized by an intense fear of judgment in social situations, yet the underlying mechanisms driving this condition remain poorly understood. One hypothesis holds that specific alterations in Theory of Mind (ToM) affect the ability to interpret others thoughts and emotions. Another hypothesis proposes that broader interpretive biases lead individuals to perceive social cues as overly significant, even in neutral settings. We investigated these possibilities by measuring brain activity, pupil responses, and heart rates in socially anxious individuals and matched controls as they viewed Partly Cloudy, an animated film known to engage the ToM network during specific scenes. While overall brain activity during ToM-related scenes was similar across groups, socially anxious participants exhibited reduced activation in the left posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), a key area for ToM processing. Additionally, intersubject correlation analysis revealed a distinct neural response pattern in the socially anxious group, marked by uniform responses in sensory regions and heightened variability in higher-order cortical areas. This pattern persisted throughout the film and occurred without changes in heart rate or pupil responses, indicating a neural processing bias that manifests even in non-evaluative settings. These findings provide a neural basis for ToM alterations and broader interpretive biases in social anxiety, supporting cognitive-behavioral models and suggesting novel targets for intervention.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Preserved spontaneous mentalizing amid reduced intersubject variability in autism during a movie narrative

Individuals with autism may perform well in structured Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks that assess their ability to infer mental states, yet encounter challenges in everyday social interactions. Using fMRI and pupillometry, we investigated whether this discrepancy stems from reduced spontaneous mentalizing or broader difficulties in unstructured environments. Autistic adults and neurotypical controls viewed a nonverbal animated movie featuring events known to evoke mental state inferences. Both groups exhibited similar ToM network activations and pupil responses to these events, alongside comparable verbal accounts of the mental states portrayed. However, intersubject correlation analysis revealed a significant reduction in response variability among autistic participants throughout the movies complex visual narrative, affecting brain regions beyond the ToM network. We suggest that the primary challenge for individuals with autism may lie in the idiosyncratic exploration of narratives in unstructured settings, regardless of whether mental state inferences are involved.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Fractionating difficulty during sentence comprehension using functional neuroimaging

Sentence comprehension is highly practiced and largely automatic, but this belies the complexity of the underlying processes. We used functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to investigate garden-path sentences that cause difficulty during comprehension, in order to unpack the different processes used to support sentence interpretation. By investigating garden-path and other types of sentences within the same individuals, we functionally profiled different regions within the temporal and frontal cortices in the left hemisphere. The results revealed that different aspects of comprehension difficulty are handled by left posterior temporal, left anterior temporal, ventral left frontal, and dorsal left frontal cortices. The functional profiles of these regions likely lie along a spectrum of specificity to generality, including language-specific processing of linguistic representations, more general conflict resolution processes operating over linguistic representations, and processes for handling difficulty in general. These findings suggest that difficulty is not unitary and that there is a role for a variety of linguistic and non-linguistic processes in supporting comprehension.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Integrating stereotypes and factual evidence in interpersonal communication

Stereotypes can exert a powerful influence on our interactions with others, potentially leading to prejudice when factual evidence is ignored. Here, we identify neuroanatomical and developmental factors that influence the real-time integration of stereotypes and factual evidence during live social interactions. The study uses precisely quantified communicative exchanges in a longitudinal cohort of seventeen-year-olds followed since infancy, testing their ability to moderate stereotype tendencies toward children as contrary evidence accumulates. Our results indicate that the impact of stereotypes on communicative behavior is linked to individual variations in gray matter density and cortical thickness in the right anterior cingulate gyrus. In contrast, the ability to moderate stereotype tendencies is influenced by developmental exposure to social interactions during the initial years of life, beyond the effects of familial environment and later experiences. These findings pinpoint a key brain structure underlying stereotype tendencies and suggest that early-life social experiences have lasting consequences on how individuals integrate factual evidence in interpersonal communication.

neuroscience↗