The primary goal of this training fellowship is to apply functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques to the study of the social brain. A recent endeavor of the neurosciences has been to characterized the neural circuitry associated with our ability to interact in a social world. Early brain imaging studies of social cognition were limited to the presentation of static 2 dimensional images that were often presented out of social and affective context. Current work has remedied this issue by presenting dynamic visual scenes, demonstrating how salient social cues are often reflected by meaningful biological motion. Nonetheless much of this work has employed paradigms where the subject passively views movements made in and out of social context. This proposal will test two novel designs aimed at enhancing the ability to engage subjects in a more realistic and compelling social situation. Study 1 will focus on comparing neural correlates associated with approaching a dynamic social scene with those associated with approaching a non-social scene. Study 2 has been designed to characterize neural circuitry underlying the decoding of social intentions conveyed by social signs is when humans approach ambiguous social situations. ? ?
