Research report Dissociating cognitive from affective theory of mind: A TMS study Elke Kalbe a,b, *, Marius Schlegel b , Alexander T. Sack c , Dennis A. Nowak a , Manuel Dafotakis a,b , Christopher Bangard d , Matthias Brand e,f , Simone Shamay-Tsoory g , Oezguer A. Onur a,b and Josef Kessler b a Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3), Cognitive Neurology Section, Research Centre Juelich, Germany b Department of Neurology, University Hospital of Cologne, Germany c Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht University, The Netherlands d Department of Radiology, University Hospital of Cologne, Germany e Department of General Psychology, Cognition, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany f Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Essen, Germany g Department of Psychology and Brain and Behavior Center, University of Haifa, Israel article info Article history: Received 5 September 2008 Reviewed 9 December 2008 Revised 6 April 2009 Accepted 9 July 2009 Action editor Elena Rusconi Published online 29 July 2009 Keywords: Theory of Mind Transcranial magnetic stimulation Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex 5 cm rule abstract Introduction: ‘‘Theory of Mind’’ (ToM), i.e., the ability to infer other persons’ mental states, is a key function of social cognition. It is increasingly recognized to form a multidimensional construct. One differentiation that has been proposed is that between cognitive and affective ToM, whose neural correlates remain to be identified. We aimed to ascertain the possible role of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) for cognitive ToM as opposed to affective ToM processes. Methods: 1 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) was used to interfere offline with cortical function of the right DLPFC in healthy male subjects who subsequently had to perform a computerized task assessing cognitive and affective ToM. Results: RTMS over the right DLPFC induced a selective effect on cognitive but not affective ToM. More specifically, a significant acceleration of reaction times in cognitive ToM compared to affective ToM and control items was observed in the experimental (right DLPFC) compared to the control (vertex) rTMS stimulation condition. Conclusions: Our findings provide evidence for the functional independence of cognitive from affective ToM. Furthermore, they point to an important role of the right DLPFC within neural networks mediating cognitive ToM. Possible underlying mechanisms of the accel- eration of cognitive ToM processing under rTMS are discussed. ª 2009 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3), Cognitive Neurology Section, Research Center Ju ¨ lich, Leo-Brandt-Str. 5, D-52425 Juelich, Germany. E-mail address: e.kalbe@fz-juelich.de (E. Kalbe). available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cortex 0010-9452/$ – see front matter ª 2009 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2009.07.010 cortex 46 (2010) 769–780