ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the evidence accumulated so far regarding the neural bases of social skills and emotional behavioural responses in monkeys. Special emphasis is put on findings from decades of lesion studies substantiating the idea that social-emotional cognition in primates critically depends on a fronto-temporal network linking the amygdala and orbital frontal cortex, and possibly including the anterior cingulate and temporopolar cortices as well. The review is intended to inform and stimulate research in this area, and, more particularly, to foster future studies that aim at elucidating the cooperative or competitive interactions underlying the contribution of this temporal-frontal network to social-emotional cognition in primates. Such animal models may offer a new foundation for determining the neuropathological bases of several psychopathologies in humans and, ultimately, for developing therapeutic tools to alleviate these disorders.
