The social brain in adolescence

Key Points The 'social brain' is the network of brain regions that are involved in understanding other people, and includes the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). These regions are key to the process of mentalizing — that is, the attribution of mental states to oneself and to other people. Recent functional neuroimaging research has shown that activity in parts of the social brain during social cognitive tasks changes during adolescence. In particular, there is some indication that activity in the PFC during face-processing tasks increases from childhood to adolescence and then decreases from adolescence to adulthood. Consistent with this, there is evidence that activity in the mPFC during mentalizing tasks decreases between adolescence and adulthood. The prefrontal cortex is one of the brain regions that undergo structural development, including synaptic reorganization, during adolescence. Synaptic density, reflected in grey-matter volume in MRI scans, decreases during adolescence. It is argued that the synaptic reorganization in the PFC might underlie the functional changes that are seen in the social brain during adolescence, as well as the social cognitive changes that are characteristic of this period of life. Social behaviour changes dramatically during adolescence. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore reviews the recent evidence of structural and functional alterations in areas of the social brain during this period and discusses how these changes might contribute to the development of social behaviour in adolescents. An interview with Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is available for download from the Neuropod podcast (April 2008). The term 'social brain' refers to the network of brain regions that are involved in understanding others. Behaviour that is related to social cognition changes dramatically during human adolescence. This is paralleled by functional changes that occur in the social brain during this time, in particular in the medial prefrontal cortex and the superior temporal sulcus, which show altered activity during the performance of social cognitive tasks, such as face recognition and mental-state attribution. Research also indicates that, in humans, these parts of the social brain undergo structural development, including synaptic reorganization, during adolescence. Bringing together two relatively new and rapidly expanding areas of neuroscience — social neuroscience and the study of brain development during ado