Gusnard Debra A
Department of Radiology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
Conscious Cogn. 2005 Dec;14(4):679-97. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2005.04.004. Epub 2005 Oct 26.
Having a self is associated with important advantages for an organism. These advantages have been suggested to include mechanisms supporting elaborate capacities for planning, decision-making, and behavioral control. Acknowledging such functionality offers possibilities for obtaining traction on investigation of neural correlates of self-hood. A method that has potential for investigating some of the brain-based properties of self arising in behavioral contexts varying in requirements for such behavioral guidance and control is functional brain imaging. Data obtained with this method are beginning to converge on a set of brain areas that appear to play a significant role in permitting conscious access to representational content having reference to self as an embodied and independent experiencer and agent. These areas have been identified in a variety of imaging contexts ranging from passive state conditions in which they appear to manifest ongoing activity associated with spontaneous and typically 'self-related' cognition, to tasks targeting explicitly experienced properties of self, to demanding task conditions where activity within them is attenuated in apparent redirection of cognitive resources in the service of task guidance and control. In this paper, these data will be reviewed and a hypothesis presented regarding a significant role for these areas in enabling degrees of self-awareness and participating in the management of such behavioral control.
拥有自我对生物体具有重要优势。这些优势被认为包括支持复杂的规划、决策和行为控制能力的机制。认识到这种功能为研究自我的神经关联提供了契机。一种有可能研究在行为背景中出现的自我的一些基于大脑的特性的方法是功能性脑成像，这些行为背景对这种行为指导和控制的要求各不相同。用这种方法获得的数据开始聚焦于一组脑区，这些脑区似乎在允许有意识地获取与作为一个具身的、独立的体验者和主体的自我相关的表征内容方面发挥着重要作用。这些脑区已在各种成像背景中被识别出来，从被动状态条件（在这种条件下它们似乎表现出与自发的、通常“与自我相关”的认知相关的持续活动），到针对自我明确体验到的特性的任务，再到要求苛刻的任务条件（在这种条件下，为了服务于任务指导和控制，认知资源明显重新定向，它们内部的活动减弱）。在本文中，将对这些数据进行综述，并提出一个关于这些脑区在实现自我意识程度和参与此类行为控制管理方面的重要作用的假设。
