2017年5月19日，国际顶尖学术期刊《Science》杂志上在线发表了美国洛克菲勒大学J. Sliwa研究组的一篇研究论文，论文报道了研究人员在灵长类动物中发现了一个专门用来分析社交互动的神经回路。社交互动是灵长类的一个主要的认知组分，但人们对这一过程的基础神经回路所知甚少。

为了获得更多的了解，J. Sliwa 和 W. A. Freiwald用全脑功能性磁共振成像(fMRI)来对4只恒河猴在看视频时的脑部活动进行监测。这些视频捕捉到了猴子-猴子、猴子-物体及物体-物体间的互动，以及低层次的运动控制及自然复杂场景视频。作者发现，传统上已知与视觉特征加工有关的脑神经网络会在发生这些互动时被强势征用;他们还确认了一个在前额叶皮层内侧和腹外侧的神经网络，它只参与猴-猴间的互动。有趣的是，作者指出，这一社交互动网络的特征与人类社交互动相关的神经系统(该系统被称作心理理论和人类预设模式网络)相似。Sliwa和Freiwald说，因此，恒河猴看来与人类共有某些脑部区域的功能性和解剖特征。

原文摘要：Primate cognition requires interaction processing. Interactions can reveal otherwise hidden properties of intentional agents, such as thoughts and feelings, and of inanimate objects, such as mass and material. wher and how interaction analyses are implemented in the brain is unknown. Using whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging in macaque monkeys, we discovered a network centered in the medial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex that is exclusively engaged in social interaction analysis. Exclusivity of specialization was found for no other function anywher in the brain. Two additional networks, a parieto-premotor and a temporal one, exhibited both social and physical interaction preference, which, in the temporal lobe, mapped onto a fine-grain pattern of object, body, and face selectivity. Extent and location of a dedicated system for social interaction analysis suggest that this function is an evolutionary forerunner of human mind-reading capabilities.