Volume 53, October 2023, 101309Author links open overlay panel,

There is growing evidence demonstrating a critical role of the posterior cerebellar Crus area in social mentalizing (i.e. reading the other person’s mind). Many studies support the view that while inferring the mental state of other persons, the cerebellar Crus area identifies the persons’ sequences of actions that allow to anticipate upcoming social interactions. Functional and structural connectivity analyses reveal that there are many closed loops (i.e. links initiating and terminating in the same area) between the cerebellar Crus area and mentalizing areas in the neocortex, suggesting that the cerebellum receives mentalizing input from the neocortex to allow identification of action sequences, and sends out error signals when predictions about social action sequences are not as expected. Noninvasive stimulation of the cerebellar Crus area using transcranial magnetic stimulation or transcranial direct current stimulation modulates activity in the cerebellum and related mentalizing areas in the neocortex, highlighting the potential of cerebellar stimulation for modifying social behavior.

Section snippetsThe role of the cerebellum in social action sequences and mentalizing

In social interactions, it is crucial to understand the current situation and to predict the upcoming actions of others. To do so, we need social cognitive skills, which involve the capacity to infer from the behaviors of other persons or the self of their state of mind. This capacity is an almost uniquely human process, termed mentalizing or ‘theory of mind’ and includes inferences of persons’ intentions, preferences, beliefs, traits, and feelings. It is a key factor to understand, control,

Evidence for the cerebellum in social action sequences and mentalizing

In support of the ‘sequence detection’ function in social cognition, multiple studies provided evidence that the posterior Crus area supports social mentalizing (for an overview, see Ref. [12]; Figure 1). Specifically, these studies demonstrate the specificity of the cerebellar Crus area in social action sequence processing that requires mentalizing by comparing the prime social sequencing condition against two control conditions: a nonsequencing and a nonsocial condition. Several studies

Cerebellar connectivity in social mentalizing

The critical role of the cerebellum in supporting social sequencing was revealed by the discovery of a distinct social neural circuitry. For this, researchers turned to advanced connectivity techniques such as Dynamic Causal Modelling (DCM). DCM analyses on combined studies involving traits revealed that the cerebellar Crus area is an important hub connected via down- and upward closed loops from and to the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), precuneus (Pc), and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), key

Cerebellar atlases and gradients of social and nonsocial processes

Are the cerebellar Crus and lobule-IX areas preferentially involved in social cognition and mentalizing? One of the earliest attempts to identify a broad spectrum of task-related psychological functions in the cerebellum was conducted by King and colleagues [34]. Their parcellation involved 26 unique tasks to characterize motor and cognitive processes, but unfortunately included only one social mentalizing task (i.e. short stories containing true or false beliefs), which might underrepresent

Improving social skills by noninvasive neurostimulation

The cerebellum is increasingly becoming a target for noninvasive neurostimulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) or transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), to examine the role of the posterior cerebellum in different aspects of social cognition (for a more in-depth review, see Ref. [43]) and evaluate its therapeutic potential. All reported studies compared real stimulation to a sham (i.e. inactive) or active control (i.e. on another brain area) stimulation,

Conclusion

Although ignored for a long time, evidence is mounting that the cerebellum is important for understanding the sequential dynamics of social behavior, and for signaling the social mentalizing network in the neocortex when violations of expected social behaviors occur. Research on closed loops, functional parcellations, and gradients of the cerebellum shows the unique position of the posterior Crus areas and lobule IX in supporting social action and mentalizing. There is also growing research on

Funding

This research was funded by the Strategic Research Program SRP57 from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel awarded to Frank Van Overwalle.

Ethical approval

Not applicable.

Authors' contributions

Frank Van Overwalle conceived, wrote, and edited the draft paper and Elien Heleven reviewed the paper.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors have no competing interests to declare.

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