Exploration of the Neural Correlates of Social Expertise: an Fmri Study Comparing Healthy Individuals With Different Levels and Types of Expertise

As human beings, we are embedded in social contexts, whether physical or virtual, that shape our brains throughout our lives, boosting our development, cognition and well-being. For us, interacting with others is an extremely simple thing, but it is actually one of the most complex computations our brains can perform. Indeed, when interacting with others, several regions of the brain are activated in order to encode socio-perceptual information, to attribute mental states to the interlocutors, and finally to trigger appropriate responses. Social interaction engages also by brain regions supporting social conceptual knowledge, relating, for example, to abstract concepts such as "friendship". Crucially, conceptual knowledge acquisition and organization are sustained by language. The mechanisms underlying social cognition and social conceptual knowledge are closely linked. This link relates, for example, to abstract concepts such as "friendship." For example, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show impairments in social interactions and in the ability to use abstract concepts related to internal states of the individual as well as to interactions between people. Behavioral studies have shown how experience can impact the characterization of abstract concepts. This impact influences their personal, introspective, and contextual characteristics. Neuroimaging studies have also reported that experience modulates neural networks shared with non-experts. This happens through mechanisms of brain plasticity. Examples include increasing brain volume and/or functional activity. However, experience can also lead to the recruitment of additional brain resources. This enriches the knowledge gained by experts. Proficiency in a second language is another example of lifelong experience. Successful mastery of a second language requires the ability to switch between languages, inhibiting the unnecessary language and selecting the necessary one during interaction. Thus, second language proficiency modulates cognitive control functions and underlying neural structures and may influence social decision-making. The question of whether and how second language knowledge modulates the semantic control network is currently debated. The role of different types and levels of expertise in influencing the neural representation of specific categories of abstract concepts, particularly social concepts, has yet to be fully elucidated.