Speaker：Prof. Alessio Avenanti, Università di Bologna, ltaly

Time： April 18th, 15:00-16:30

Venue：Room 1115, Wangkezhen Building

Host：Prof. Shihui Han

Abstract

Understanding others’emotions, intentions, and actions depends on a distributed network of brain regions known as the“social brain", including the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and ventral premotor cortex (PMv). While these regions are known to interact  during social perception and cognition, the plasticity and causal relevance of their connectivity remain poorly understood. In this talk, l will present a series of studies using cortico-cortical paired associative stimulation (ccPAS), an information-based transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) protocol that requires precise knowedge of the underlying physiology to tailor stimulation to the architecture of the targeted network. ccPAS leverages the Hebbian principle of spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) to modulate effective connectivity between interconnected brain regions. Across tasks involving emotion recognition, motor resonance, and imitation, l will show that selectively strengthening specific forward or backward proiections between social brain hubs leads to distinct changes in both behavior and neural activity. These effects are pathway-specific, temporally precise, and mechanistically grounded in STDP. Overall, these findings demonstrate that social brain networks are functionally plastic, and that targeted modulation of their connectivity can causally shape key components of social cognition. ccPAS offers a powerful, physiology-informed tool for dissecting and influencing the dynamics of the social brain, with implications for both basic research and clinical applications.

2025-04-02