Social-Network Complexity in Humans Is Associated With the Neural Response to Social Information

Abstract

Humans have evolved to thrive in large and complex social groups, and it is likely that this increase in group complexity has come with a greater need to decode and respond to complex and uncertain communicatory signals. In this functional MRI study, we examined whether complexity of social networks in humans is related to the functioning of brain regions key to the perception of basic, nonverbal social stimuli. Greater activation to biological than to scrambled motion in the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and right amygdala were positively correlated with the diversity of social-network roles. In the pSTS, in particular, this association was not due to a relationship between network diversity and network size. These findings suggest that increased functioning of brain regions involved in decoding social signals might facilitate the detection and decoding of subtle signals encountered in varied social settings.