Marina A. Pavlova

Blindsight is an intriguing phenomenon, in which individuals with damage to the primary visual cortex can adequately respond to visual targets, even though they insist on little or absent awareness of their visual experience. Several questions arise in this context: (i) Is awareness a necessary prerequisite for adaptive and flexible behavior? (ii) Does the phenomenon of blindsight actually exist, or is it a wordplay and rather a matter of residual vision or a peculiar form of seeing? (iii) Do we possess suitable tools for capturing reliable subjective reports and behavioral responses? This is a long-standing yet still highly relevant methodological challenge. (iv) Not to be overlooked, the neural basis of blindsight has not yet been sufficiently elucidated. The matter becomes even more complex when one considers the remarkable potential of the brain for reorganization. Is it, after all, a wise view that one should look before taking the leap?

Humans tend to attribute social characteristics to moving geometric shapes as if they were animate beings (eg, kissing each other while dancing). This ability is considered an integral component of day-to-day life and a fundamental key to navigating effective social communication. The Heider-and-Simmel (HS)-like paradigm is suitable for investigating mechanisms of social attribution across lifespans and population groups, particularly in clinical contexts. As vast majority of mental and neurodevelopmental disorders are gender-specific, the present study delves into possible gender impacts on inferring social interaction in HS-like movies. The outcome indicates that typically developing females and males do not differ in recognition accuracy and processing speed of social interaction in HS-like animations, though males take longer and tend to be less accurate in recognition of similar control movies, more often mistaking them for social interaction. The signal detection analysis shows that females tend to be more tuned to social interaction (in terms of sensitivity index, d′) without gender difference in response bias (decision criterion c). In both genders, decision criteria are liberal (c < 0), pointing to a tendency to anthropomorphize control animations. The outcome sheds light on the nature of gender impact on perception of interaction as well as on neural underpinnings of social attribution in the gendered brain.

Neurotypical people are generally quite adept at interpreting social signals from dynamic bodies and faces. This ability prevents one from incurring high costs associated with ineffective and maladaptive social interactions. Individuals with mental disorders, such as schizophrenia (SZ), often exhibit deficits in nonverbal social cognition. It remains unclear whether reading the language of bodies and faces is affected by SZ, and if this is indeed the case, how these potential deficits are related to one another. In the present study, participants (28 males with SZ and 28 typically developing, TD, matched controls) were administered face-to-face computer tasks on inferring emotions from dynamic point-light body motion and faces. The outcome indicates that SZ patients exhibit global impairments in both body and face reading, albeit patients demonstrate a similar emotion recognition profile as TD controls. In SZ patients only, a positive link was found between accuracy of recognizing emotions expressed through faces and bodies, whereas processing speed of emotions conveyed through bodies and faces was tied to each other in both SZ and TD individuals. For SZ patients, inferring social signals from dynamic faces and bodies may be rather challenging in terms of neurocognitive mechanisms, which is reflected in the tight link in recognition accuracy. Along with previous data on inferring emotions in the eyes collected in the same cohort, this work provides novel insights into the specific global aberrations in social cognition in SZ and offers a blueprint for the development of strategies for the targeted treatment of gender-specific mental disorders.

The discovery of the diverse facets of individual brain regions was perceived (and continues to be perceived) as a brain enigma. Yet, many brain regions are increasingly recognized as multifunctional, altering their roles much like chameleons. The significance of a single brain region is more deeply grasped when viewed through the lens of functional networks that enable adaptive behavior. Does this constitute a genuine explanation? How do we traditionally determine the key as well as the auxiliary functions of a specific brain region? Can we ascertain the mission of a single brain area within a functional network in a different, alternative way? An immense amount of work lies ahead of us to unravel the mystery of even a single brain region, an endeavor ranging from paradigm shifts and new theoretical perspectives to the development of novel experimental approaches.

Faces are essential for effective communication and social interaction. Substantial alterations in face processing are observed in a wide range of mental disorders, in particular, in schizophrenia (SZ). Individuals with SZ experience difficulties to seeing faces in face-pareidolia images that easily elicit face impression in their typically developing (TD) peers. Here, males with SZ and TD controls performed a task with Arcimboldo-like Face-n-Food face-pareidolia images during MEG recording. The outcome reveals that already at early processing stages, the bursts of gamma oscillations differ between SZ and TD individuals in terms of frequency and topography. When contrasting gamma activity for face responses between TD individuals and SZ, the maximum activation for the frequency range of 40–45 Hz originates from the right LOC. In accord with this, in SZ, an advanced analysis of brain connectivity unfolding over time in the low (40–45 Hz) and high (65–70 Hz) gamma ranges reveals alterations in communication between the right LOC and the social brain. In SZ, early engagement of the right LOC is limited to transmitting signals to higher-order regions, whereas in TD, it also serves as a recipient of sophisticated feedback communication from the higher-order areas of the social brain. This study offers novel insights into altered brain communication and the origins of social cognition deficits in SZ that is characterized by a skewed sex ratio with substantial gender differences in disease manifestation.

This Editorial shares with the neuroscience community the signs of progress in making Cerebral Cortex more attractive. Furthermore, the journal commemorates the Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM), introduced by Karl Friston and his collaborators three decades ago. Over time, SPM has had a profound impact on the way of thinking in neuroscience. The journal offers a magnificent fireworks display of reflections on the past, present and future of SPM. Yet, the debate extends far beyond SPM. It touches on crucial issues such as how to interpret the growing body of neuroimaging data and explain it in a biologically plausible way that echoes the nature of brain function.

In this Editorial, as the new Editor-in-Chief of Cerebral Cortex, I make a tribute to its well-known founders, late Patricia S. Goldman-Rakić and Paško Rakić. A couple with great synergies, they created a very special journal with a unique spirit, one of the premier venues to publish the best neuroscience research. For the journal’s future, my intentions are threefold: (i) to maintain and advance the high publication standards and traditions that contribute to the exceptional reputation of Cerebral Cortex in the scientific community, (ii) to follow the principles established by its founders, and (iii) to reflect novel trends in scientific publishing that have been crucially altered in recent years.

Nonverbal communication habitually leaks out in ways that expose underlying thoughts, true feelings, and integrity of a counterpart. Social cognition is deficient in a wide range of mental disorders, including schizophrenia (SZ). Inferring social signals through the eyes is pivotal for social interaction but remains poorly investigated. The present work aims to fill this gap by examining whether and, if so, how reading language of the eyes is altered in SZ. We focused on male SZ, primarily because the disorder manifests a gender-specific profile. Patients and matched typically developing (TD) individuals were administered the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test-Modified (RMET-M) and Emotions in Masked Faces (EMF) task that provide comparable visual information. The findings indicate that in SZ, the emotion recognition profile is similar to TD, with a more accurate recognition of some emotions such as fear, neutral expressions, and happiness than the others (sadness and disgust). In SZ, however, this profile is shifted down: all emotions are recognized less accurately than in TD. On the RMET-M, patients are also less precise, albeit they perform better on items with positive valence. In SZ only, recognition accuracy on both tasks is tightly linked to each other. The outcome reveals global challenges for males with SZ in inferring social information in the eyes and calls for remediation programs to shape social cognition. This work offers novel insights into the profiles of social cognitive deficits in mental disorders that differ in their gender prevalence.

The eyes are widely regarded as the mirror of the soul, providing reliable nonverbal information about drives, feelings, and intentions of others. However, it is unclear how accurate emotion recognition is when only the eyes are visible and whether inferring of emotions is altered across healthy adulthood. To fill this gap, the present piece of research was directed at comparing the ability to infer basic emotions in two groups of typically developing females that differed in age. We set a focus on females seeking group homogeneity. In a face-to-face study, in a two-alternative forced choice paradigm (2AFC), participants had to indicate emotions for faces covered by masks. The outcome reveals that although the recognition pattern is similar in both groups, inferring sadness in the eyes substantially improves with age. Inference of sadness is not only more accurate and less variable in older participants, but also positively correlates with age from early through mid-adulthood. Moreover, reading sadness (and anger) is more challenging in the eyes of male posers. A possible impact of poser gender and cultural background, both in expressing and inferring sadness in the eyes, is highlighted.

Aberrations in non-verbal social cognition have been reported to coincide with major depressive disorder. Yet little is known about the role of the eyes. To fill this gap, the present study explores whether and, if so, how reading language of the eyes is altered in depression. For this purpose, patients and person-by-person matched typically developing individuals were administered the Emotions in Masked Faces task and Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, modified, both of which contained a comparable amount of visual information available. For achieving group homogeneity, we set a focus on females as major depressive disorder displays a gender-specific profile. The findings show that facial masks selectively affect inferring emotions: recognition of sadness and anger are more heavily compromised in major depressive disorder as compared with typically developing controls, whereas the recognition of fear, happiness, and neutral expressions remains unhindered. Disgust, the forgotten emotion of psychiatry, is the least recognizable emotion in both groups. On the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test patients exhibit lower accuracy on positive expressions than their typically developing peers, but do not differ on negative items. In both depressive and typically developing individuals, the ability to recognize emotions behind a mask and performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test are linked to each other in processing speed, but not recognition accuracy. The outcome provides a blueprint for understanding the complexities of reading language of the eyes within and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.