Neural network of social interaction observation in marmosets
Abstract
A crucial component of social cognition is to observe and understand the social interactions of other individuals. A promising nonhuman primate model for investigating the neural basis of social interaction observation is the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), a small New World primate that shares a rich social repertoire with humans. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) acquired at 9.4 Tesla to map the brain areas activated by social interaction observation in awake marmosets. We discovered a network of subcortical and cortical areas, predominately in the anterior lateral frontal and medial frontal cortex, that was specifically activated by social interaction observation. This network resembled that recently identified in Old World macaque monkeys (Sliwa and Freiwald, 2017). Our findings suggest that this network is largely conserved between New and Old World primates and support the use of marmosets for studying the neural basis of social cognition.
Data availability
The datasets generated during this study are available at https://github.com/JClery/Social_interaction_paper.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (FRN 148365)
- Stefan Everling
Canada First Research Excellence Fund (BrainsCAN)
- Stefan Everling
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Thorsten Kahnt, Northwestern University, United States
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All experimental methods described were performed in accordance with the guidelines of the Canadian Council on Animal Care policy on the care and use of experimental animals and an ethics protocol #2017-114 approved by the Animal Care Committee of the University of Western Ontario.Animals were monitoring during the acquisition sessions by a veterinary technician.
Version history
- Received: November 18, 2020
- Accepted: March 29, 2021
- Accepted Manuscript published: March 31, 2021 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: April 6, 2021 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2021, Cléry et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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