Salience driven attention is pivotal to understanding others’ intentions

Myrthe G. Rijpma; Suzanne M. Shdo; Tal Shany-Ur; Gianina Toller; Joel H. Kramer; Bruce L. Miller; Katherine P. Rankin

doi:10.1080/02643294.2020.1868984

Salience driven attention is pivotal to understanding others’ intentions

Myrthe G. Rijpma, Suzanne M. Shdo, Tal Shany-Ur, Gianina Toller, Joel H. Kramer, Bruce L. Miller, Katherine P. Rankin^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Interpreting others’ beliefs, desires and intentions is known as “theory of mind” (ToM), and is often evaluated using simplified measurement tools, which may not correctly reflect the brain circuits that are required for real-life ToM functioning. We aimed to identify the brain structures necessary to correctly infer intentions from realistic scenarios by administering The Awareness of Social Inference Test, Enriched subtest to 47 patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, 24 patients with progressive supranuclear palsy syndrome, 31 patients with Alzheimer’s syndrome, and 77 older healthy controls. Neuroimaging data was analyzed using voxel based morphometry, and participants’ understanding of intentions was correlated with voxel-wise and region-of interest data. We found that structural integrity of the cinguloinsular cortex in the salience network (SN) was more pivotal for accurate ToM than previously described, emphasizing the importance of the SN for selectively recognizing and attending to social cues during ToM inferences.

Original language	American English
Pages (from-to)	88-106
Number of pages	19
Journal	Cognitive Neuropsychology
Volume	38
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/02643294.2020.1868984
State	Published - 2021
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We would like to thank all the patients and caregivers for participating in this research, and Laura Bouvet for their help with data acquisition. Voxel-based morphometry analyses were performed using the UCSF Brainsight system, developed at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center by Katherine P. Rankin, Cosmo Mielke, and Paul Sukhanov, and powered by the VLSM script written by Stephen M. Wilson, with funding from the Rainwater Charitable Foundation and the UCSF Chancellor’s Fund for Precision Medicine.

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health under Grant [numbers R01AG029577 (PI: Rankin), K23-AG021606 (PI: Rankin), P01AG019724 (PI: Miller), P50AG023501 (PI: Miller)]; Larry L. Hillblom foundation under Grant [number 2002/2j (PI: Rankin), 2014-A-004-NET (PI: Kramer)]. We would like to thank all the patients and caregivers for participating in this research, and Laura Bouvet for their help with data acquisition. Voxel-based morphometry analyses were performed using the UCSF Brainsight system, developed at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center by Katherine P. Rankin, Cosmo Mielke, and Paul Sukhanov, and powered by the VLSM script written by Stephen M. Wilson, with funding from the Rainwater Charitable Foundation and the UCSF Chancellor?s Fund for Precision Medicine.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

Social cognition
neurodegenerative diseases
neuropsychology
salience network
theory of mind
voxel-based morphometry

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title = "Salience driven attention is pivotal to understanding others{\textquoteright} intentions",

abstract = "Interpreting others{\textquoteright} beliefs, desires and intentions is known as “theory of mind” (ToM), and is often evaluated using simplified measurement tools, which may not correctly reflect the brain circuits that are required for real-life ToM functioning. We aimed to identify the brain structures necessary to correctly infer intentions from realistic scenarios by administering The Awareness of Social Inference Test, Enriched subtest to 47 patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, 24 patients with progressive supranuclear palsy syndrome, 31 patients with Alzheimer{\textquoteright}s syndrome, and 77 older healthy controls. Neuroimaging data was analyzed using voxel based morphometry, and participants{\textquoteright} understanding of intentions was correlated with voxel-wise and region-of interest data. We found that structural integrity of the cinguloinsular cortex in the salience network (SN) was more pivotal for accurate ToM than previously described, emphasizing the importance of the SN for selectively recognizing and attending to social cues during ToM inferences.",

keywords = "Social cognition, neurodegenerative diseases, neuropsychology, salience network, theory of mind, voxel-based morphometry",

author = "Rijpma, {Myrthe G.} and Shdo, {Suzanne M.} and Tal Shany-Ur and Gianina Toller and Kramer, {Joel H.} and Miller, {Bruce L.} and Rankin, {Katherine P.}",

note = "Funding Information: We would like to thank all the patients and caregivers for participating in this research, and Laura Bouvet for their help with data acquisition. Voxel-based morphometry analyses were performed using the UCSF Brainsight system, developed at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center by Katherine P. Rankin, Cosmo Mielke, and Paul Sukhanov, and powered by the VLSM script written by Stephen M. Wilson, with funding from the Rainwater Charitable Foundation and the UCSF Chancellor{\textquoteright}s Fund for Precision Medicine. Funding Information: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health under Grant [numbers R01AG029577 (PI: Rankin), K23-AG021606 (PI: Rankin), P01AG019724 (PI: Miller), P50AG023501 (PI: Miller)]; Larry L. Hillblom foundation under Grant [number 2002/2j (PI: Rankin), 2014-A-004-NET (PI: Kramer)]. We would like to thank all the patients and caregivers for participating in this research, and Laura Bouvet for their help with data acquisition. Voxel-based morphometry analyses were performed using the UCSF Brainsight system, developed at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center by Katherine P. Rankin, Cosmo Mielke, and Paul Sukhanov, and powered by the VLSM script written by Stephen M. Wilson, with funding from the Rainwater Charitable Foundation and the UCSF Chancellor?s Fund for Precision Medicine. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.",

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AU - Kramer, Joel H.

AU - Miller, Bruce L.

AU - Rankin, Katherine P.

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Salience driven attention is pivotal to understanding others’ intentions

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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