All parts of the brain › Functions › Social behaviour

What part of the brain controls social behaviour?

No single part: reading other people draws on a set of regions. The medial and ventromedial prefrontal cortex are active when you think about what others feel and intend, the temporoparietal junction when you work out what someone else believes, the superior temporal sulcus reads movement, gaze and voices, the amygdala gives a social signal its emotional weight and the fusiform gyrus picks out faces. [1][2][3]

The superior frontal gyrus, the orbitofrontal cortex, the supramarginal gyrus, the angular gyrus, the superior temporal gyrus, the amygdala and the fusiform gyrus lit in red on a 3D model of the brain, seen from the front left and above

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Lit: whole parts; region borders not drawn.

Slice

All 7 parts are lit together. Drag to turn, pinch or scroll to zoom, tap a part on the brain or a name in the list to focus it; .

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a region on a lit part, not a separate shape. The 3D model draws only whole gyri and lobes, so the part that holds each area is lit; the area’s exact border is not drawn.

The temporoparietal junction is a region on the angular gyrus, not a separate shape. The 3D model has no shape for it, so the whole angular gyrus is lit; the region’s exact border is not drawn.

The superior temporal sulcus is a region on the superior temporal gyrus, not a separate shape. The 3D model has no shape for it, so the whole superior temporal gyrus is lit; the region’s exact border is not drawn.

Social behaviour: 7 parts lit

Superior frontal gyrus, orbitofrontal cortex, supramarginal gyrus, angular gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, amygdala and fusiform gyrus. Tap one to see where it is and what it does.

The parts and their roles

Its inner (medial) face holds much of the medial prefrontal cortex, which is consistently active when people think about other people’s inner states and in theory-of-mind tasks; low on that face it joins the orbitofrontal cortex in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. [1] Where is the superior frontal gyrus?
The underside of the frontal lobe, the other half of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. People with damage there have trouble interpreting nonverbal social information; in Adolphs’s review the patient known as EVR, operated on at 35, saw a remarkable decline in his personal and professional life, and such patients feel less emotional arousal before a risky choice. [1] Where is the orbitofrontal cortex?
Front half of the inferior parietal lobule, which with the back of the superior temporal sulcus makes up the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), where the temporal and parietal lobes meet at the back end of the lateral sulcus; the TPJ is tied to perspective-taking and to telling your own mental states from someone else’s. [2] Where is the supramarginal gyrus?
Back half of the inferior parietal lobule and of the TPJ, the region activated selectively when people imagine somebody else’s beliefs; damage within it impairs the ability to attribute beliefs to others. In Saxe and Kanwisher’s 2003 imaging study its activity rose as people took in information about other people’s beliefs. [1][2] Where is the angular gyrus?
Forms the upper bank of the superior temporal sulcus, which reads social signals: it responds to biological motion (the way a living body moves), follows where other people are looking, responds to human voices, and a region at its back end responds preferentially to facial expressions. [3][1] Where is the superior temporal gyrus?
Gives social signals their emotional weight: damage to the amygdala impairs recognising emotion in facial expressions, and it responds to faces even when they are not consciously seen. Adolphs argues for a broader role in arousal and vigilance rather than a social module of its own. [1] Where is the amygdala?
Holds the fusiform face area, a patch of the ventral temporal cortex that responds more to faces than to any other kind of object; damage to the fusiform gyrus can take away the ability to recognise faces while basic vision still works. It also fires when people see faces in things that are not faces. [1][4][5] Where is the fusiform gyrus?

Named areas on the lit parts

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex, on the : On the orbitofrontal cortex and the lower medial face of the superior frontal gyrus; damage to it leaves people with trouble interpreting nonverbal social information. [1]
The temporoparietal junction, on the : Often shortened to TPJ: the inferior parietal lobule plus the back of the superior temporal sulcus, one in each hemisphere. The right TPJ is also tied to moral judgement: in a 2010 study, magnetic stimulation over it changed how much people weighed an actor’s intentions when judging what they did. [2]
The superior temporal sulcus, on the : The groove under the superior temporal gyrus. In a point-light study a cluster at the back of the right sulcus was active in people who correctly recognised the biological motion; it also responds when people lip-read. [3]

How they work together

Roughly, the parts fall into two groups. The fusiform gyrus, superior temporal sulcus and amygdala take in social signals: faces, bodies moving and voices. The medial prefrontal cortex and the TPJ are active when you think about what another person believes or intends, with the posterior cingulate cortex, another region active in theory-of-mind tasks, working in step with the medial prefrontal cortex even at rest. [1]
The first clue came from Phineas Gage, a railroad construction foreman whose behaviour was reported to change after an 1848 accident damaged one or both of his frontal lobes; later work found that frontal damage can change emotional responses to social stimuli and performance on theory-of-mind tasks. [4][6]
The human brain does much of its growing among other people: at birth it is about 25% of its adult volume, against nearly 50% for a chimpanzee and about 70% for a macaque, and the prefrontal cortex, tied to decision-making and social behaviour, expanded greatly in humans compared with other primates. [1][4]
Honest limit: these regions come mostly from brain imaging and from what changes after damage, and none of them is only social (the fusiform face area also responds to objects people are expert in; the amygdala tracks arousal in general). The atlas lights whole gyri, not the exact patches, and the page describes how social perception works in general, nothing about any one person. [1][3]

Sharing what someone else feels is its own page: empathy lights the insula, which is active when you watch someone you love receive a shock, with the cingulate gyrus and the same amygdala and TPJ. [1][2] What part of the brain controls empathy?

Telling who a face belongs to has its own page, lighting the fusiform face area with the occipital lobe and inferior temporal gyrus that feed it. [5] What part of the brain recognises faces?

Sources

Facts describe anatomy and normal function only. A part lit here takes part in social behaviour; it does not do it alone, and it does other jobs too. The 3D model is the adult male BodyParts3D brain (credits and licence); on it the brainstem includes the midbrain, pons and medulla, so lighting the brainstem lights all three.