Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: Pamela Lopes da Cunha | email: pamelopes@gmail.com
Pamela Lopes da Cunha 1°2°, Sol Fittipaldi 1°3°, Cecillia Campo 1°3°, Marcelo Kauffman 4°5°, Sergio Rodriguez 4°, Darío Andres Yacovino 6°7°, Agustin Ibañez 1°3°8°9°, Agustina Birba 1°3°9°, Adolfo Martin Garcia 1°3°8°10°
1° Cognitive Neuroscience Center, University of San Andrés. Bs As, Argentina
2° National Agency for Scientific Promotion and Technology (ANPCyT). Bs As, Argentina
3° National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). Bs AS, Argentina
4° Neurogenetics Unit Hospital JM Ramos Mejía. Bs As, Argentina
5° School of Medicine, UBA, CONICET. Bs As, Argentina
6° Department of Neurology, Dr. Cesar Milstein Hospital. Bs As, Argentina
7° Memory and Balance Clinic. Bs As, Argentina,
8° Global Brain Health Institute, University of California San Francisco, US and Trinity College. Dublin, Ireland,
9° Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Adolfo Ibáñez University. Santiago, Chile
10° Linguistics and Literature Department, School of Humanities, University of Santiago de Chile. Santiago, Chile
When we interact with people, watch a love movie, or read about others´ confrontations, our brain recruits specific mechanisms for processing social concepts (abstract units evoking interpersonal traits or circumstances). This skill has been related to the functions of fronto-temporo-limbic regions subserving broad sociocognitive abilities. Here, we examined whether social concepts also hinge on the cerebellum, a structure increasingly implicated in social cognition. We recruited 15 cerebellar ataxia (CA) patients (with focal cerebellar atrophy) and 29 healthy controls. Participants listened to a social text (rich in interpersonal events) as well as a non-social text (focused on a single person´s actions), answered comprehension questionnaires, and completed a resting-state functional neuroimaging protocol. CA patients were selectively impaired is social text comprehension, even upon accounting for working memory skills. Also, social text outcomes in controls selectively correlated with connectivity between the cerebellum and cortical regions underpinning multimodal semantics and social cognition. Conversely, no such correlation was observed in the patients. Thus, cerebellar structures and connections seem to play a distinct role in social concept processing. Such findings refine current neurocognitive models of social semantics while revealing potential markers of cerebellar dysfunction.