Social Network In Monkey Brains Is Clue To Evolution Of Human Mind

Monkey brains have sections dedicated solely to social interactions, a new finding that researchers say could help us better understand the human mind. Scientists scanning the brains of rhesus macaques found that certain parts were active when the monkeys watched videos of social interactions between other monkeys, but that same network was largely inactive in response to other images. A study in the journal Science said those brain regions that were purely analyzing social interactions are in the same places as the ones in the human brain that are associated with similar processes, like the ones that help us understand other people's intentions and what they are thinking, which is called the theory of mind. As the scientists were showing the monkeys the social videos and scanning their brains, they also followed the monkey's gaze to see where the primates were looking (tracked by a red dot in the gif below). The results were "both unexpected and mind-boggling," researcher Winrich Freiwald said in a statement from Rockefeller University, referring in part to the concept that a brain network would power down when, in the words of the university, it is "denied its preferred input."