Neural network of social interaction observation in marmosets

Abstract
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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

Justine C Cléry

Centre for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

For correspondence
jclery@uwo.ca

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1020-1845
Yuki Hori

Centre for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
David J Schaeffer

Department of Neurobiology, University of Pittsburg, Pittsburg, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Ravi S Menon

Centre for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Stefan Everling

Centre for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

For correspondence
severlin@uwo.ca

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

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.

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.

Copyright

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.