People constantly adjust their behavior based on what they think others are thinking, yet how the brain supports this flexibility remains unclear. A new study by Niklas Buergi, Gökhan Aydogan and colleagues at UZH and collaborating institutions shows that the brain dynamically updates beliefs about others’ reasoning during social interactions. Using computational modelling and brain imaging, the researchers identify a neural signature that tracks these belief updates and predicts how individuals adapt their strategies.
Understanding others’ thoughts and intentions – often referred to as mentalization – is central to human social behavior. While previous research has largely treated this ability as static, real-life interactions require continuous adjustment as situations unfold. To capture this, the researchers combined computational modelling with functional brain imaging while participants engaged in repeated strategic games, allowing them to quantify how individuals update their beliefs about an opponent’s level of reasoning over time.
The results show that participants flexibly adapted their strategies depending on their opponent, though with clear individual differences. For example, in a rock–paper–scissors–like game, if an opponent repeatedly chose the same move, participants quickly learned to exploit this pattern. But when facing a more strategic opponent who anticipated such adjustments, participants shifted to more complex reasoning – for instance, considering what the opponent expected them to do next. These ongoing belief updates were reflected in activity across a distributed network of brain regions linked to social cognition, including the temporoparietal junction and prefrontal cortex. Importantly, using machine learning, the researchers identified a multivariate neural signature that reliably tracked these dynamic belief changes and predicted how individuals adjusted their behavior during interaction.
These findings suggest that mentalization is not a fixed ability but a dynamic process that can be measured and linked to underlying brain activity. More broadly, the study provides a framework for connecting computational models of social reasoning with neural data, opening new avenues for investigating how flexible social cognition breaks down in neuropsychiatric conditions and how it might be targeted in future interventions.
Reference: Buergi N, Aydogan G, Konovalov A, Ruff CC. A neural signature of adaptive mentalization. Nature Neuroscience. 2026. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02219-x
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