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. 2022 Apr 1;17(4):351-366.
doi: 10.1093/scan/nsab105.

Early and late neural correlates of mentalizing: ALE meta-analyses in adults, children and adolescents

Lynn V Fehlbaum  1   2 , Réka Borbás  1   2 , Katharina Paul  2 , Simon B Eickhoff  3   4 , Nora M Raschle  1   2   5
Affiliations

Early and late neural correlates of mentalizing: ALE meta-analyses in adults, children and adolescents

Lynn V Fehlbaum et al. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. .

Abstract

The ability to understand mental states of others is referred to as mentalizing and enabled by our Theory of Mind. This social skill relies on brain regions comprising the mentalizing network as robustly observed in adults but also in a growing number of developmental studies. We summarized and compared neuroimaging evidence in children/adolescents and adults during mentalizing using coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses to inform about brain regions consistently or differentially engaged across age categories. Adults (N = 5286) recruited medial prefrontal and middle/inferior frontal cortices, precuneus, temporoparietal junction and middle temporal gyri during mentalizing, which were functionally connected to bilateral inferior/superior parietal lobule and thalamus/striatum. Conjunction and contrast analyses revealed that children and adolescents (N = 479) recruit similar but fewer regions within core mentalizing regions. Subgroup analyses revealed an early continuous engagement of middle medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus and right temporoparietal junction in younger children (8-11 years) and adolescents (12-18 years). Adolescents additionally recruited the left temporoparietal junction and middle/inferior temporal cortex. Overall, the observed engagement of the medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus and right temporoparietal junction during mentalizing across all ages reflects an early specialization of some key regions of the social brain.

Keywords: activation likelihood estimation; children; development; functional neuroimaging; mentalizing; theory of mind.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Overlay of meta-analysis results for (A) adults (red) and children/adolescents (green; almost fully covered since overlapping with the conjunction results) and the conjunction analysis of both groups (blue) during mentalizing. Overlapping brain activity in adults and children/adolescents was identified for medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), precuneus (PC)/posterior cingulate gyrus (PCC), temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and middle temporal gyri. (B) Contrast analyses for adults > children/adolescents (red) and children/adolescents > adults (green; almost fully covered since overlapping with the conjunction results) and the conjunction analysis of both groups (blue) during mentalizing. Increased activity for adults compared to children was, for example, detected in middle MPFC, superior and inferior frontal gyri (SFG/IFG) and middle temporal gyri (MTG). (C) Children (below 12 years of age; pink), adolescents (12 years and older; yellow) and the conjunction analysis of both age groups (blue). Common brain activity was detected in MPFC and PC/PCC (all P < 0.05, FWE corrected).
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Meta-analytic connectivity modeling results for adults. Regions of interest identified in our meta-analysis (mint) and resulting clusters of functional connectivity (red), including inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and thalamus/caudate (THAL/CAU). Coordinates are in MNI space.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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