Neural Mentalizing Signatures Predict Social Contacts, Not Loneliness or Support, in Older Adulthood

Social disconnection in later life is a growing public health concern. Both structural aspects of social connections (reduced number of social contacts) and experiential elements (perceived loneliness) are linked to poorer health, yet their neural bases may differ. Prior work showed that neural patterns associated with mentalizing—our ability to understand others’ mental states—predict variance in the number of social contacts in young adults. Whether this generalizes to older adulthood—when mentalizing may decline— and if it extends to experiential aspects of social connection, remains unclear. To address this, we applied multivoxel pattern analysis to fMRI data from 41 older adults (65–77 years) performing a task elicitingmentalizing and empathy (EmpaToM). Mentalizing-related activation in the right temporoparietal junction predicted the number of social contacts, despite age-related declines in behavioral mentalizing, but did not reflect experiential measures such as perceived loneliness or social support. Supplemental analyses of empathy-related brain regions showed no associations, indicating specificity to mentalizing. These findings suggest that preserved neural representations of mentalizing may help maintain social ties in later life, while being distinct from subjective experience. By dissociating structural from experiential dimensions, our results clarify the neural mechanisms supporting social connectedness and resilience in aging