The Japanese journal of neuropsychology

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ArticleTitle	Social cognition deficits in cases with superior temporal sulcus lesion and amygdala lesions
Language	J
AuthorList	Tomoko Akiyama¹⁾, Motoichiro Kato²⁾, Taro Muramatsu²⁾, Fumie Saito²⁾, Ryoko Nakachi¹⁾, Haruo Kashima²⁾
Affiliation	1) Department of Psychiatry, Komagino Hospital 2) Department of Neuropsychiatry, Keio University School of Medicine
Publication	Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 23 (4), 260-267, 2007
Received
Accepted
Abstract	The superior temporal sulcus (STS) and the amygdala are often implicated as the neural substrates for social cognition. Here, we introduce cases with lesions in these areas, and their deficits in social cognition. In a case with right superior temporal gyrus lesion, we observed impairments in gaze direction discrimination, gaze-triggered orienting, and facial expression recognition. On the other hand, this case did not demonstrate impairment in identifying famous faces or in novel face learning. These findings lend support to the face processing model which postulates that changeable aspects of faces (ie, facial expression, gaze direction) are processed independently from invariant aspects (ie, identity). In cases with unilateral amygdala lesions, we again demonstrated a deficit in gaze-triggered orienting. Of particular interest is that both STS-lesion case and amygdala-lesion cases were intact in orienting their attention toward arrow sign, a non-biological symbol. This discrepancy between biological (gaze) and non-biological (arrow) signals implicates that components of the social brain, such as the STS and the amygdala, are specialized in processing biological signals, and work in concert to support social cognition.
Keywords	amygdala, facial processing, gaze, social cognition, superior temporal sulcus