PMID- 34098065
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20211102
LR  - 20211102
IS  - 1095-9572 (Electronic)
IS  - 1053-8119 (Linking)
VI  - 238
DP  - 2021 Sep
TI  - Seeing things differently: Gaze shapes neural signal during mentalizing according 
      to emotional awareness.
PG  - 118223
LID - S1053-8119(21)00500-0 [pii]
LID - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118223 [doi]
AB  - Studies on social cognition often use complex visual stimuli to asses neural 
      processes attributed to abilities like "mentalizing" or "Theory of Mind" (ToM). 
      During the processing of these stimuli, eye gaze, however, shapes neural signal 
      patterns. Individual differences in neural operations on social cognition may 
      therefore be obscured if individuals' gaze behavior differs systematically. These 
      obstacles can be overcome by the combined analysis of neural signal and natural 
      viewing behavior. Here, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) 
      with eye-tracking to examine effects of unconstrained gaze on neural ToM 
      processes in healthy individuals with differing levels of emotional awareness, 
      i.e. alexithymia. First, as previously described for emotional tasks, people with 
      higher alexithymia levels look less at eyes in both ToM and task-free viewing 
      contexts. Further, we find that neural ToM processes are not affected by 
      individual differences in alexithymia per se. Instead, depending on alexithymia 
      levels, gaze on critical stimulus aspects reversely shapes the signal in medial 
      prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and anterior temporoparietal junction (TPJ) as distinct 
      nodes of the ToM system. These results emphasize that natural selective attention 
      affects fMRI patterns well beyond the visual system. Our study implies that, 
      whenever using a task with multiple degrees of freedom in scan paths, ignoring 
      the latter might obscure important conclusions.
CI  - Copyright (c) 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.
FAU - Zimmermann, Kristin Marie
AU  - Zimmermann KM
AD  - Laboratory for Multimodal Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry and 
      Psychotherapy, University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany; Department of Neurology 
      and Neurorehabilitation, Hospital zum Heiligen Geist, Academic Teaching Hospital 
      of the Heinrich-Heine-University Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf, Germany; Center for 
      Mind, Brain and Behavior (CMBB), University of Marburg and Justus Liebig 
      University Giessen. Electronic address: kzimmerm@med.uni-marburg.de.
FAU - Schmidt, Kirsten Daniela
AU  - Schmidt KD
AD  - Laboratory for Multimodal Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry and 
      Psychotherapy, University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
FAU - Gronow, Franziska
AU  - Gronow F
AD  - Laboratory for Multimodal Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry and 
      Psychotherapy, University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany; Center for Mind, Brain 
      and Behavior (CMBB), University of Marburg and Justus Liebig University Giessen.
FAU - Sommer, Jens
AU  - Sommer J
AD  - Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior (CMBB), University of Marburg and Justus 
      Liebig University Giessen; Core-Unit Brainimaging, Faculty of Medicine, 
      University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
FAU - Leweke, Frank
AU  - Leweke F
AD  - Clinic for Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Justus Liebig University 
      Giessen, Giessen, Germany.
FAU - Jansen, Andreas
AU  - Jansen A
AD  - Laboratory for Multimodal Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry and 
      Psychotherapy, University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany; Center for Mind, Brain 
      and Behavior (CMBB), University of Marburg and Justus Liebig University Giessen; 
      Core-Unit Brainimaging, Faculty of Medicine, University of Marburg, Marburg, 
      Germany.
LA  - eng
PT  - Comparative Study
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20210604
PL  - United States
TA  - Neuroimage
JT  - NeuroImage
JID - 9215515
SB  - IM
MH  - Adult
MH  - Affective Symptoms
MH  - Attention/physiology
MH  - Brain Mapping
MH  - *Emotions
MH  - Eye-Tracking Technology
MH  - Female
MH  - Fixation, Ocular/*physiology
MH  - Humans
MH  - Individuality
MH  - Magnetic Resonance Imaging
MH  - Male
MH  - Mentalization/*physiology
MH  - Parietal Lobe/diagnostic imaging/physiology/physiopathology
MH  - Prefrontal Cortex/diagnostic imaging/physiology/physiopathology
MH  - *Social Cognition
MH  - Temporal Lobe/diagnostic imaging/physiology/physiopathology
MH  - Theory of Mind/*physiology
MH  - Young Adult
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - Alexithymia
OT  - Emotional awareness
OT  - Eye-tracking
OT  - Mentalizing
OT  - Theory of Mind
OT  - fMRI
COIS- Declaration of Competing Interest None.
EDAT- 2021/06/08 06:00
MHDA- 2021/11/03 06:00
CRDT- 2021/06/07 20:14
PHST- 2021/03/11 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2021/05/26 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2021/05/29 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2021/06/08 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2021/11/03 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2021/06/07 20:14 [entrez]
AID - S1053-8119(21)00500-0 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118223 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Neuroimage. 2021 Sep;238:118223. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118223. Epub 2021 
      Jun 4.