Contributions of the Posterior Cerebellum to Mentalizing and Social Functioning: A Transdiagnostic Investigation

Background. Mentalizing—our ability to make inferences about the mental states of others—is impaired across psychiatric disorders and robustly associated with functional outcome. Mentalizing deficits have been prominently linked to aberrant activity in cortical regions considered part of the “social brain network” (e.g., dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction), yet emerging evidence also suggests an importance of cerebellar dysfunction. In the present study—using a transdiagnostic, clinical psychiatric sample spanning the psychosis?autism-social anxiety spectrums —we examined the role of cerebellum in mentalizing and itsunique contributions to broader social functioning. Methods. 66 participants (42 with significant social dysfunction secondary to psychiatric illnessand 24 non-clinical controls without social dysfunction) completed a mentalizing task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. General linear model analysis, latent variable modeling, and regression analyses were used to examine the contribution of cerebellum activation to the prediction of group status and social functioning.Results. Mentalizing activated a broad set of social-cognitive brain regions, including cerebral mentalizing network (MN) nodes and posterior cerebellum. Increased posterior cerebellum activation significantly predicted group status (i.e., individuals with psychiatric disorders versus non-clinical controls). Finally, cerebellar activation accounted for significant variance in social functioning independent of all other cerebral MN brain regions identified in a whole-brain analysis.Conclusion. Findings add to an accumulating body of evidence establishing the unique role of posterior cerebellum in mentalizing deficits and social dysfunction across psychiatric illnesses. Collectively, our results suggest that the posterior cerebellum should be considered – alongside established cerebral regions – as part of the mentalizing network.