Superior Frontal Gyrus Cortical Thickness Mediates the Association Between Openness to Experience and Theory of Mind: Evidence from the Human Connectome Project

In 1,049 healthy young adults from the Human Connectome Project, superior frontal gyrus cortical thickness partially mediates the link between openness to experience and Heider-Simmel theory of mind accuracy.

• Why it matters: Theory of mind varies across healthy adults, and openness to experience has been associated with social cognition and thinner prefrontal cortex; it was unclear whether brain structure statistically explains their relationship.
• What they did: Using NEO Five-Factor Inventory openness, Heider-Simmel ToM accuracy, and bilateral superior frontal gyrus thickness from FreeSurfer, the authors tested mediation with covariate-adjusted models and 5,000 bootstrap resamples.
• The result: Openness predicted higher ToM accuracy (beta = .081, p = .009), and thinner left/right SFG predicted higher accuracy (beta = -.082 and -.075); indirect effects were significant (left .0069, 95% CI [.0010, .0158]; right .0063, 95% CI [.0007, .0146]) and explained about 8.5% and 7.8% of the total effect.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.