of vasopressin leads individuals to associate an unfamiliar face with a familiar category more readily. While recognizing that this is the first study that has looked into this connection, the authors propose that it has potential to lead into further research about regulating the TPJ with vasopressin or a similar compound, which could allow pharmacologists to target this area of the brain and help with certain disorders including autism, social anxiety disorder. Perhaps such an approach could also be used to treat certain symptoms of schizophrenia or other disorders with know social cognitive impairments. Current research Current research involving the TPJ is extensive, ranging from issues of physiology to issues of mental state. A wide range of cognitive processes rely on the TPJ and as such gaining information about it is crucial. Research is conducted by studying the role TPJ plays both with and without lesions when stimulated, and with task-based fMRI. Research concerns various issues such as theory of mind, out-of-body experiences, temporal order judgments, morality, etc. This is a growing field due to the prevalence of ailments that involve TPJ as well as because of the importance of perception in everyday life. Theory of mind Theory of mind requires the collaboration of functionally related regions of the brain to form the distinction between self and other mental states and to create a comprehensive understanding of those mental states so that we may recognize, understand, and predict behavior. In general the theory of mind process is mediated by the dopaminergic-serotonergic system, which involves the TPJ as well as other associative regions necessary for mentalizing. Recent studies suggest that both the left TPJ, working in conjunction with the frontal cortex, and the right TPJ are involved in the representation of mental states; furthermore they suggest that the TPJ is particularly active in making the distinction between the mental states of self and others. A study in Nature Neuroscience from 2004 describes how the TPJ is involved in processing socially relevant cues including gaze direction and goal-directed action and also explains that results from the study show that lesions to this area of the brain result in an impaired ability to detect another persons belief. Moreover, studies have reported an increase in activity in the TPJ when patients are absorbing information through reading or images regarding other peoples' beliefs but not while observing information about physical control stimuli. Some studies, however,