Attention to the Other's Body Sensations Modulates the Ventro Medial PreFrontal Cortex.

Theory of Mind (ToM) is involved in experiencing the mental states and/or emotions of others. A further distinction can be drawn between emotion and perception/sensation. We investigated the mechanisms engaged when participants' attention is driven towards specific states. Accordingly, 21 right-handed healthy individuals performed a modified Theory-of-Mind (ToM) task in which they reflected about someone's emotion or someone's body sensation, while they were in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. The analysis of brain activity evoked by this task suggests that the two conditions engage a widespread common network previously found involved in affective ToM (TPJ, parietal cortex, DLPFC, MPFC, Insula). Critically, the key brain result is that body sensation implicates selectively VMPFC. The current findings suggest that only paying attention to the other's body sensations modulates a self-related representation (VMPFC).