Correction to: Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03184-0 Published online 27 January 2021

When we recently reconstructed our recording locations on a standardized 3D brain model, we observed that the recording sites were in near proximity to those originally estimated but were also more posterolateral and somewhat broader in distribution. These recordings collectively spanned the superior frontal gyrus as well as part of its medial middle frontal gyrus border. These observations do not alter the neuronal findings or results of the paper and do not affect the analyses or other figures. There are two interesting implications of these observations, though, with respect to prior functional imaging studies.

First, the locations of dorsomedial prefrontal activities associated with theory of mind on neuroimaging generally lay anterior to the reconstructed recordings1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. As a result, it seems likely that the neuronal populations involved in theory of mind, as reported here, are drawn from near5,6,7,8 or outside1,2,3,4 these selective regions. Indeed, as originally reported in the paper, we found a mixture of neurons within the recorded population that encoded social as well as non-social information, consistent with the relative lack of regional selectivity on imaging studies. Second, whereas the regions characterized by neuroimaging may play a domain-specific role in theory of mind inference, it is likely that the neuronal populations in the present study may be more centrally involved in theory of mind performance. Indeed, as reported in the paper, behavioral response accuracy was closely correlated with neuronal decoding accuracy when examined across task conditions. Here, the correction provides a detailed account of these recording locations.

In this correction, we include a new Supplementary Figure that illustrates the individual recording locations on a standardized 3D brain model in MNI152 space. We also include a new Supplementary Table that links the recording coordinates (SPM12) to each participant and provide an updated Supplementary Methods section that describes this procedure.

Supplementary information is available in the online version of this article.