Basis functions for complex social decisions in dorsomedial frontal cortex

Marco K. Wittmann (), Yongling Lin, Deng Pan, Moritz N. Braun, Cormac Dickson, Lisa Spiering, Shuyi Luo, Caroline Harbison, Ayat Abdurahman, Sorcha Hamilton, Nadira S. Faber, Nima Khalighinejad, Patricia L. Lockwood and Matthew F. S. Rushworth
Additional contact information
Marco K. Wittmann: University College London
Yongling Lin: University College London
Deng Pan: University of Oxford
Moritz N. Braun: University of Oxford
Cormac Dickson: University College London
Lisa Spiering: University of Oxford
Shuyi Luo: University of Oxford
Caroline Harbison: University of Oxford
Ayat Abdurahman: University of Oxford
Sorcha Hamilton: University of Oxford
Nadira S. Faber: University of Oxford
Nima Khalighinejad: University of Oxford
Patricia L. Lockwood: University of Oxford
Matthew F. S. Rushworth: University of Oxford

Nature, 2025, vol. 641, issue 8063, 707-717

Abstract: Abstract Navigating social environments is a fundamental challenge for the brain. It has been established that the brain solves this problem, in part, by representing social information in an agent-centric manner; knowledge about others’ abilities or attitudes is tagged to individuals such as ‘oneself’ or the ‘other’1–6. This intuitive approach has informed the understanding of key nodes in the social parts of the brain, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)7–9. However, the patterns or combinations in which individuals might interact with one another is as important as the identities of the individuals. Here, in four studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging, behavioural experiments and a social group decision-making task, we show that the dmPFC and ACC represent the combinatorial possibilities for social interaction afforded by a given situation, and that they do so in a compressed format resembling the basis functions used in spatial, visual and motor domains10–12. The basis functions align with social interaction types, as opposed to individual identities. Our results indicate that there are deep analogies between abstract neural coding schemes in the visual and motor domain and the construction of our sense of social identity.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08705-9

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