October 8, 2025

We are pleased to report that special lecture event “KAIWA”, inviting external experts to our Wako office, was held for the purpose of acquiring diverse perspectives and knowledge on new fields.

Guest speaker: Takaaki Kaneko

Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Division of Behavioral Development, Department of System Neuroscience, National Institute for Physiological Sciences

https://researchmap.jp/takaakikaneko

Title: “Understanding the brain as a mentalizing machine”

Abstract: Daily communication relies on inferences about others' internal states behind their actions, a cognitive process known as mentalizing. Understanding how the human brain transforms sensory information into inferences about others’internal states may provide new insights into the nature of social interactions and therapeutic interventions, as well as the development of more effective human–machine interactions. In this talk, I will introduce a series of studies investigating the neural mechanisms underlying mentalizing using non-human primates as model species. First, we established a novel behavioral analysis system that precisely captures 3D motions of primate behaviors under freely moving conditions. This system enables fully data-driven analysis of behaviors, such as unsupervised evaluation of the progressive manifestation of Parkinson’s disease symptoms solely from videographic data. Furthermore, although 3D motions per se are merely pieces of spatiotemporal information about bodily actions, they enable the decoding of a broad spectrum of behavioral traits from natural behaviors, including internal states of animals akin to the mentalizing process. In turn, using this framework, we have identified a cortical area that is causally involved in behavioral flexibility in response to others’ internal states. Lastly, I will argue that the design of artificial neural networks emulates the computational principles underlying mentalizing that the biological brain may perform.

In this talk, Professor Kaneko presented research on the neural basis of mentalizing—the ability to infer others’ thoughts and feelings essential for everyday communication—using studies with non-human primates, among other approaches.