Prefrontal-amygdala circuits in primate social interaction

Social interactions are characterized by a series of other-regarding decisions and coordinated actions. One critical component of social processing is the computation of prosocial and antisocial decisions. We recently reported the first direct evidence of specialized coordination between the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the basolateral amygdala (BLA) during social decision-making. We found enhanced coordination of neural activity between mPFC and BLA for prosocial but suppressed coordination for antisocial decision preference.

Another critical component of social behavior is social gaze interactions. Our recent work shows that neurons in the prefrontal-amygdala network encoded spontaneously occurring, face-to-face, social exchanges. We studied a large number of neurons spanning four regions in primate prefrontal-amygdala networks and demonstrated robust single-cell foundations of interactive social gaze. These findings support key functions of the prefrontal–amygdala network in social interaction.