1 Scientific RepoRts | 6:22491 | DOI: 10.1038/srep22491 www.nature.com/scientificreports sharing self-related information is associated with intrinsic functional connectivity of cortical midline brain regions Dar Meshi 1 , Loreen Mamerow 1 , evgeniya Kirilina 1,2 , Carmen Morawetz 1 , Daniel s. Margulies 3 & Hauke R. Heekeren 1,2 Human beings are social animals and they vary in the degree to which they share information about themselves with others. Although brain networks involved in self-related cognition have been identiied, especially via the use of resting-state experiments, the neural circuitry underlying individual diferences in the sharing of self-related information is currently unknown. Therefore, we investigated the intrinsic functional organization of the brain with respect to participants’ degree of self-related information sharing using resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging and self-reported social media use. We conducted seed-based correlation analyses in cortical midline regions previously shown in meta-analyses to be involved in self-referential cognition: the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), central precuneus (CP), and caudal anterior cingulate cortex (CACC). We examined whether and how functional connectivity between these regions and the rest of the brain was associated with participants’ degree of self-related information sharing. Analyses revealed associations between the MPFC and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), as well as the CP with the right DLPFC, the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex and left anterior temporal pole. These indings extend our present knowledge of functional brain connectivity, speciically demonstrating how the brain’s intrinsic functional organization relates to individual diferences in the sharing of self-related information. Human beings like to share information about themselves. Around 30–40% of everyday speech contains personal information about the speaker 1,2 , and people will forgo money for the opportunity to disclose information about themselves 3 . Importantly, humans display diferences in the degree to which they share self-relevant information 4 . hese diferences are crucial considering that the ability to present oneself efectively to others, which includes the sharing of self-related information, is one of the most vital skills in human social life 5 . In support of this, self-presentation plays an important role in occupational success, romantic attraction, making friends, and other desirable aspects of life 6–10 . Social psychologists have proposed cognitive process models for the decision to disclose self-related information 11–14 . In general, these models require the self-disclosing person to keep self-related information in mind as they decide whether to share it. he person also considers the availability of a disclosure target. If a target is available, the self-disclosing person enters into a process where various positive and negative aspects of sharing the information with the target are weighed. To explain, a person may consider how sharing information about themselves will make them feel and what there is to gain or lose from sharing. hey may also consider how their disclosure target may react to hearing this information. he person inally decides whether or not to share the self-relevant information. herefore, this entire decision process concerning the sharing of self-related infor- mation involves various types of cognition, such as self-referential thought, social cognition (e.g., mentalizing), reward-related processing, and executive functioning (e.g., working memory). 1 Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany. 2 Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany. 3 Max Planck Research Group for neuroanatomy & connectivity, Max Planck institute for Human cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstrasse 1a, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to D.M. (email: dar.meshi@fu-berlin.de) Received: 14 July 2015 accepted: 12 February 2016 Published: 07 March 2016 opeN