Causal reasoning is domain-specific in the human brain

Causal reasoning in the human brain is implemented in distinct, domain-specific cortical regions: the Physics Network and TPJ respond to causal conditions only within physical or social domains, respectively.

• Why it matters: It remains unclear whether a unified neural system performs causal inference across domains or whether separate brain systems support causal reasoning about social agents versus physical objects.
• What they did: Using fMRI across three pre-registered experiments, participants performed reading comprehension, sentence matching, and tasks probing preventative and generative causal reasoning; stronger causal responses appeared in the Physics Network and TPJ only in their respective domains.
• The result: Whole-brain analyses found no region selectively engaged causal reasoning or showed common voxelwise response patterns for causality across both physical and social domains, implying domain-specific implementation.