Dear Lonny,

This is a complex matter but it is possible that ventromedial prefrontal damages affect sociability. This paper may interest you:

Front Hum Neurosci. 2014 Feb 24;8:74. The default mode network and social understanding of others: what do brain connectivity studies tell us.

Li W, Mai X, Liu C.

The Default Mode Network (DMN) has been found to be involved in various domains of cognitive and social processing. The present article will review brain connectivity results related to the DMN in the fields of social understanding of others: emotion perception, empathy, theory of mind, and morality. Most of the reviewed studies focused on healthy subjects with no neurological and psychiatric disease, but some studies on patients with autism and psychopathy will also be discussed. Common results show that the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) plays a key role in the social understanding of others, and the subregions of the MPFC contribute differently to this function according to their roles in different subsystems of the DMN. At the bottom, the ventral MPFC in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) subsystem and its connections with emotion regions are mainly associated with emotion engagement during social interactions. Above, the anterior MPFC (aMPFC) in the cortical midline structures (CMS) and its connections with posterior and anterior cingulate cortex contribute mostly to making self-other distinctions. At the top, the dorsal MPFC (dMPFC) in the dMPFC subsystem and its connection with the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) are primarily related to the understanding of other's mental states. As behaviors become more complex, the related regions in frontal cortex are located higher. This reflects the transfer of information processing from automatic to cognitive processes with the increase of the complexity of social interaction. Besides the MPFC and TPJ, the connectivities of posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) also show some changes during tasks from the four social fields. These results indicate that the DMN is indispensable in the social understanding of others.

PLoS One. 2012;7(2):e30920. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0030920.

Introspective minds: using ALE meta-analyses to study commonalities in the neural correlates of emotional processing, social & unconstrained cognition.

Schilbach L, Bzdok D, Timmermans B, Fox PT, Laird AR, Vogeley K, Eickhoff SB.

[email protected]

Abstract

Previous research suggests overlap between brain regions that show task-induced deactivations and those activated during the performance of social-cognitive tasks. Here, we present results of quantitative meta-analyses of neuroimaging studies, which confirm a statistical convergence in the neural correlates of social and resting state cognition. Based on the idea that both social and unconstrained cognition might be characterized by introspective processes, which are also thought to be highly relevant for emotional experiences, a third meta-analysis was performed investigating studies on emotional processing. By using conjunction analyses across all three sets of studies, we can demonstrate significant overlap of task-related signal change in dorso-medial prefrontal and medial parietal cortex, brain regions that have, indeed, recently been linked to introspective abilities. Our findings, therefore, provide evidence for the existence of a core neural network, which shows task-related signal change during socio-emotional tasks and during resting states.

I believe bilateral damage to the vmPFC results in hypo-sensitive to the future while hyper-sensitive to immediate present.

For example, in Bechara's Brain paper in 2000, patients with bilateral vmPFC damage only focused on immediate outcomes, regardless the outcomes were gains or losses. Similarly, in Krajbich's 2009 J Neuroscience paper, vmPFC patients appeared only focused on the explicit and immediate-present goal (keeping money in the Trust Game) and ignored the implicit and more delayed goal (conforming expectation of other: to return the money). 

Hopes this helps.

Thank you Béatrice for the articles and in depth explanation. Your mention of the default mode network strikes a chord -- thanks -- "SEEK" is a big topic for me right now (Jaak Panksepp's work and social play). And thank you Kuan-Hua -- that is very exciting, I will check it out. That was my hunch, but I wasn't sure of sources. The social cortical structures seem to "play with alternate Presents" to cope with complex social networks. The hypo-hyper present/future mention is even better than I had hoped. Many thanks to you both.

See also :

Roy, M., Shohamy, D., & Wager, T. D. (2012). Ventromedial prefrontal-subcortical systems and the generation of affective meaning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(3), 147–56. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2012.01.005

Zhang, S., Hu, S., Chao, H. H., Ide, J. S., Luo, X., Farr, O. M., & Li, C. R. (2014). Ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the regulation of physiological arousal. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(7), 900–8. doi:10.1093/scan/nst064

Herbert, C., Herbert, B. M., & Pauli, P. (2011). Emotional self-reference: brain structures involved in the processing of words describing one’s own emotions. Neuropsychologia, 49(10), 2947–56. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.06.026

Sridharan, D., Levitin, D. J., & Menon, V. (2008). A critical role for the right fronto-insular cortex in switching between central-executive and default-mode networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(34), 12569–74. doi:10.1073/pnas.0800005105

Croft, K. (2009). Exploring the role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex in human social learning: a lesion study. (Dissertation retrieved from http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/350/).

All are in the database I share with you Lonny.

Best regards.

Philippe

Perfect! Thank you Philippe. I have grown so much from the many articles you have shared -- Craig, Tsakiris, Shaffer, Lee, Cardini... and Damasio of course. As a result, I continue to look into the vagal, the interoceptive and proprioceptive, and so much more. Comprehending the neuroscientific part of the basal/affective creature better is next on my reading list. If we "miss" these processes, there must be something indicating we are missing something -- an affective urgency beneath all the logic of having that.

I completely agree withBéatrice Marianne Ewalds-Kvist  that on ‘theory of mind’ tasks the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) plays a key role in the social understanding of others and with Kuan-Hua Chen that vmPFC patients only focus on the immediate-present goals (keeping money in the Trust Game) and ignore  the future negative consequences of  choosing again the same stimuli. I think, however, that it could be useful to take also into account some laterality effects that could play a role in these behavioural patterns.

According to some authors (e.g. Fuster J, The Prefrontal Cortex,Academic Press, London, 2008) there is some evidence of laterality in orbitomedial function with more right-sided than left-sided involvement in social/emotional functioning. For instance, Miller et al. (Dementia, 1993) contrasted the neuropsychological and behavioural characteristics of  patients with right and left fronto-temporal degeneration (FTD) and showed that in right-sided patients emotional and behavioural disinhibition were in the foreground, whereas no similar disorders were found in patients with left-sided FTD. More recently, Gomez-Beldarrain et al. (J Cogn Neurosci. 2004) have shown that patients with right frontal lesions are unable to assess and use advice to make predictive judgments. All these findings are consistent with the previously reported data, but stress the greater role played by the right orbital and medial PFC in emotional processing.

Thank you Guido. This accords very well with other articles I have just read--that these right frontal lesions are the inhibitory processes for contemporary/spatial awareness, which normatively waive a wider swath of sensory simultaneity in exchange for the successive ("social") direction of the creature. If you are interested, I would recommend the work of Susie Vrobel, who has very inspiring thoughts on the potential ways humans rearrange this anxious simultaneity either via a "nested  Now" (an intense, articulate, dilated Now), or succession (a "compressed Now", waiving simultaneous semantic detail in favor of less affective, cognitive achievement). Again, thank you.

I am not sure that the mechanism of the right medial prefrontal regions in emotional impairment consists of an inhibitory process for contempory spatial awareness. I rather think, in agreement with Levenson et al (2008) and Sturm et al. (2008), that the medial prefrontal regions (and especially the right sided ones) play a critical role in "self-conscious emotions", that are cognitively complex emotions, that emerge relatively late in phylogeny and ontogeny and that require an appreciation of the self in a social context.

Levenson RW, Ascher E, Goodkind M, McCarthy M, Sturm V, Werner K. Laboratory testing of emotion and frontal cortex. Handb Clin Neurol. 2008;2008:489–98.

Sturm VE, Ascher EA, Miller BL, Levenson RW. (2008). Diminished self-conscious emotional responding in frontotemporal lobar degeneration patients. Emotion. 2008 Dec;8(6):861-9.

Thank you once again Guido

--Lonny