Overlapping Functional Representations of Self- and Other-Related Thought are Separable Through Multivoxel Pattern Classification

TY - JOUR

T1 - Overlapping Functional Representations of Self- and Other-Related Thought are Separable Through Multivoxel Pattern Classification

AU - Parelman, Jacob M.

AU - Dore, Bruce P.

AU - Cooper, Nicole

AU - O'Donnell, Matthew Brook

AU - Chan, Hang-Yee

AU - Falk, Emily B.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected].

PY - 2022/3/4

Y1 - 2022/3/4

N2 - Self-reflection and thinking about the thoughts and behaviors of others are important skills for humans to function in the social world. These two processes overlap in terms of the component processes involved, and share overlapping functional organizations within the human brain, in particular within the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). Several functional models have been proposed to explain these two processes, but none has directly explored the extent to which they are distinctly represented within different parts of the brain. This study used multivoxel pattern classification to quantify the separability of self-and other-related thought in the MPFC and expanded this question to the entire brain. Using a large-scale mega-Analytic dataset, spanning three separate studies (n = 142), we find that self-and other-related thought can be reliably distinguished above chance within the MPFC, posterior cingulate cortex and temporal lobes. We highlight subcomponents of the ventral MPFC that are particularly important in representing self-related thought, and subcomponents of the orbitofrontal cortex robustly involved in representing other-related thought. Our findings indicate that representations of self-and other-related thought in the human brain are described best by a distributed pattern rather than stark localization or a purely ventral to dorsal linear gradient in the MPFC.

AB - Self-reflection and thinking about the thoughts and behaviors of others are important skills for humans to function in the social world. These two processes overlap in terms of the component processes involved, and share overlapping functional organizations within the human brain, in particular within the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). Several functional models have been proposed to explain these two processes, but none has directly explored the extent to which they are distinctly represented within different parts of the brain. This study used multivoxel pattern classification to quantify the separability of self-and other-related thought in the MPFC and expanded this question to the entire brain. Using a large-scale mega-Analytic dataset, spanning three separate studies (n = 142), we find that self-and other-related thought can be reliably distinguished above chance within the MPFC, posterior cingulate cortex and temporal lobes. We highlight subcomponents of the ventral MPFC that are particularly important in representing self-related thought, and subcomponents of the orbitofrontal cortex robustly involved in representing other-related thought. Our findings indicate that representations of self-and other-related thought in the human brain are described best by a distributed pattern rather than stark localization or a purely ventral to dorsal linear gradient in the MPFC.

KW - classification

KW - MPFC

KW - MVPA

KW - self-reference

KW - social

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85120678049&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1093/cercor/bhab272

DO - 10.1093/cercor/bhab272

M3 - Article

SN - 1047-3211

VL - 32

SP - 1131

EP - 1141

JO - Cerebral Cortex

JF - Cerebral Cortex

IS - 6

ER -