Towards a social brain

Abstract

This article provides a broad overview of what has been learned about the “social brain” from human neuroimaging research (primarily from functional magnetic resonance imaging). Social processes are thought to arise from interactions between several functionally specialized, yet interrelated, and sometimes overlapping neural networks. One way of conceptualizing different social processes is the extent to which they are primarily cognitive (or “rational”) or affective (i.e., “emotional”). According to this distinction, social cognitive processes include, but are not limited to, theory of mind, self-referential processes and moral reasoning, while social affective processes include emotion rec..