The temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is an area of the brain where the temporal and parietal lobes meet, at the posterior end of the lateral sulcus (Sylvian fissure).

[2] Furthermore, damage to the TPJ has been implicated in having adverse effects on an individual's ability to make moral decisions and has been known to produce out-of-body experiences (OBEs).

The right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) is involved in the processing of information in terms of the ability of an individual to orient attention to new stimuli.

Imaging studies show that this ability depends upon the coordinated interaction of the rTPJ to identify and process the social cues presented to it.

Individuals with lesions in the lTPJ were no longer able to correctly identify when someone was lying or insinuating a false sense of belief or desire.

Reduced metabolism in the TPJ, along with the superior frontal sulcus, correlates with Alzheimer's patients’ inability to perceive themselves as others do (with a third-person point of view); the discrepancy between a patient's understanding of their own cognitive impairment and the actual extent of their cognitive impairment increases as metabolism in the TPJ decreases.

Because dementia (including Alzheimer's) patients with anosognosia are unable to distinguish between the normal actions of other people and their own diminished abilities, it is expected that damage to the TPJ is arresting this cognitive function.

[16] There may be a connection between the temporoparietal junction and how individuals with autism spectrum disorder's recognition of socially awkward situations may differ from those not autistic.

Research reported in 2015 from an experiment in which participants, high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and non autistic controls, were asked to watch socially awkward situations (a complete episode of the sitcom The Office) under an fMRI, which measured their brain activity.

Several brain regions implicated in social perceptual and cognitive processes were of interest: "the dorsal, middle and ventral parts of medial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC, MMPFC and VMPFC), right and left temporo-parietal junctions (RTPJ and LTPJ), right superior temporal sulcus (RSTS) and temporal pole, and posterior medial cortices [posterior cingulate, precuneus (PC)].

[18] Research reported in 2016 on ASC-related structural or physiological differences found using neuroimaging noted that results are often inconsistent across the literature, which could be caused by a variety of variance sources.

(Re-)analysis using a technique they developed to reduce one common external source of variance showed group differences in TPJ.

They concluded that ASD is a highly heterogeneous syndrome/diagnostic category whose differences from NT controls are difficult to characterize globally using neuroimaging.

[19] The decreased ability for schizophrenia patients to function in social situations has been related to a deficit within the theory of mind process.

[22] This study found that there was a significant decrease in the connectivity between the left TPJ and the right hemispheric homotope of the Broca's area, which is related to the production of language that is also characteristic of AVH events.

[24] One study examined the connection between vasopressin and cortical areas that are involved in processing social interactions including the TPJ.

This study looked specifically at the brain regions that were active in men who were given vasopressin and tested based on familiarity related tasks.

[1] 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.

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.

[21] Another study in Current Biology from 2012 identifies the importance of the TPJ in both low-level, such as simple discrimination, and high-level, such as the ability to empathize, sociocognitive operations.

[27] Several neuro-imaging studies have shown an activation of the TPJ during different aspects of self-processing such as visuo-spatial perspective, self-other distinction, mental own body imagery, and vestibular and multi sensory integration.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the rTPJ seems to affect the ability of an individual, when they make moral decisions, to consider actors’ mental states.

[36] Patients’ general ability to judge moral scenarios was not obviously impaired, but it did seem to specifically affect how much they integrated a protagonist's belief into the judgement—only affecting the judgement of a scenario in which the protagonist explicitly intends and so deliberately acts to cause significant harm but completely fails solely due to an incorrect belief (about tool/weapon used).

TMS can be used to disrupt neural activity in the rTPJ just before a patient was to make a moral decision or during that decision-making process—constituting two different testing environments, but experimental results were unaffected.