# Project 5 - The Neurobiology of Social Decision-Making: Social Inference and Context

> **NIH NIH P50** · CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · 2021 · $302,264

## Abstract

Project 5. Project Summary.
 Project 5 will conduct behavioral and fMRI studies in people who have focal lesions to the prefrontal
cortex, recruited from the lesion registry at the University of Iowa. It is a major extension of our current Conte
Center, and has a subcontract to PI Daniel Tranel at Iowa. Its three Aims focus on dissociation of basic
decision-making systems (continuous with Project 1 in our current Conte Center), studies of social inference
(the same tasks as under the renewal Project 2, Aim 1), and fMRI studies probing compensatory processing.
Given the strong links to other Projects, it also includes as personnel several PIs from other Projects (Adolphs,
O'Doherty) as well as shared post-docs.
 The overarching goal of Project 5 is to use the lesion method to investigate the necessary role of
specific sectors of the prefrontal cortex, the brain region most important for social decision-making. We are
particularly interested in medial regions of the PFC, known to be critical for representing value and social
inference, and in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, known to be important for context-dependent regulation. How
damage to these regions may dissociate specific components of the social decision-making process, let alone
how it may engage compensatory processing through remaining intact network components, is largely
unexplored. This will be a crucially important complement to all other studies under this Conte Center, since it
provides a window into the necessary role of brain regions.
 Aim 1 focuses on the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in goal-directed or habit-based control in
instrumental choice. We will build on strong pilot data that shows, for the first time in humans, that the vmPFC
is essential for goal-directed, but not habit-based choice. Aim 2 will use the full battery of tasks developed
under Aim 1 of Project 2 to probe the necessary role of the prefrontal cortex in social inference. This task
battery probes inferences made to social or nonsocial stimuli, as a function of cognitive load, to facial
expressions or hand actions, and other factors. Finally, Aim 3 will analyze the tasks under Aims 1 and 2 done
in fMRI experiments, to examine the neural regions responsible for possible compensatory task performances.
 The studies will be executed in 30 patients with focal, chronic lesions to the prefrontal cortex, 30
subjects with lesions elsewhere, and 30 healthy comparison subjects, using a combination of ROI-based and
voxel-based lesion mapping. Some of the ROIs we will specifically query are those generated from the fMRI
studies in Projects 1, 2 and 3: those fMRI studies tell us which regions are activated in healthy brains, but only
Project 5 can tell us if damage within those same regions also compromises social inference and decision-
making performances.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10101679
- **Project number:** 5P50MH094258-10
- **Recipient organization:** CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
- **Principal Investigator:** RALPH ADOLPHS
- **Activity code:** P50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $302,264
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2012-07-26 → 2023-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10101679

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10101679, Project 5 - The Neurobiology of Social Decision-Making: Social Inference and Context (5P50MH094258-10). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10101679. Licensed CC0.

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