Social Computational Neuroscience Lab

We investigate the neural underpinnings of reasoning about ourselves and others, and how the brain navigates complex social situations involving multiple people. Our aim is to understand the different dimensions of social representations in various contexts, and how we adapt our mental strategies to diverse social settings.

We utilise behavioural experiments, computational modelling, and brain imaging to gain a comprehensive understanding of the building blocks of social thinking and their shared processes with other cognitive domains. We are also using novel causal techniques such as non-invasive transcranial ultrasound stimulation, to determine the cause and effect relationships between brain activity and behavior. This may ultimately help us to better understand how social thinking can go wrong in conditions such as depression and social anxiety disorders.

Research foci

Abstract representations and dimensionality reduction in social cognition
Learning and decision making in prefrontal cortex
Non-invasive causal manipulations of brain function including transcranial ultrasound stimulation

Funding

Our work is supported by:

Medical Research Council (MRC)
European Research Council (ERC)

Key References

Wittmann, M. K., Lin, Y., Pan, D., Braun, M. N., Dickson, C., Spiering, L., Luo, S., Harbison, C., Abdurahman, A., Hamilton, S., Faber, N. S., Khalighinejad, N., Lockwood, P. L., & Rushworth, M. F. S. (2025). Basis functions for complex social decisions in dorsomedial frontal cortex. Nature, 641(8063), 707–717. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08705-9

Wittmann, M. K., Trudel, N., Trier, H. A., Klein-Flügge, M. C., Sel, A., Verhagen, L., & Rushworth, M. F. S. (2021). Causal manipulation of self-other mergence in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Neuron, 109(14), 2353–2361.e2311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2021.05.027

Wittmann, M. K., Fouragnan, E., Folloni, D., Klein-Flügge, M. C., Chau, B. K. H., Khamassi, M., & Rushworth, M. F. S. (2020). Global reward state affects learning and activity in raphe nucleus and anterior insula in monkeys. Nature Communications, 11(1), Article 3771. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17343-w

Trudel, N., Lockwood, P. L., Rushworth, M. F. S., & Wittmann, M. K. (2023). Neural activity tracking identity and confidence in social information. eLife, 12, e71315. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71315

Wittmann, M. K., Kolling, N., Faber, N. S., Scholl, J., Nelissen, N., & Rushworth, M. F. S. (2016). Self-other mergence in the frontal cortex during cooperation and competition. Neuron, 91(2), 482–493. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.06.022