TED Talks Rebecca Saxe: “How we read each other’s minds”

What happens in our brains when we think about other people’s thoughts? At the Saxelab at MIT they use fMRI to identify brain regions which are activated when we consider the motives, passions and beliefs.

http://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_saxe_how_brains_make_moral_judgments.html

The temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is an area of the brain that play a  role in self-other distinction processes and theory of mind (TOM) and damage to this area has been implicated in producing out-of-body experiences (OBEs). OBEs may also be induced by electrically stimulating the TPJ.

How is this ability to understand the thoughts of others affected in people without a right TPI (due to injury or disease processes for example) ?
- hemi-spatial neglect (without visual field cuts)
- hyper-attention to local details of a scene and difficulty perceiving the global structure
- anosognosia (unaware they have a deficit)