Miller Michael B, Van Horn John Darrell
Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
Int J Psychophysiol. 2007 Feb;63(2):205-13. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2006.03.019. Epub 2006 Jun 27.
The localization of brain functions using neuroimaging techniques is commonly dependent on statistical analyses of groups of subjects in order to identify sites of activation, particularly in studies of episodic memory. Exclusive reliance on group analysis may be to the detriment of understanding the true underlying cognitive nature of brain activations. In this overview, we found that the patterns of brain activity associated with episodic retrieval are very distinct for individual subjects from the patterns of brain activity at the group level. These differences appear to go beyond the relatively small variations due to cyctoarchitectonic differences or spatial normalization. We review evidence that individual patterns of brain activity vary widely across subjects and are reliable over time despite extensive variability. We suggest that varied but reliable individual patterns of significant brain activity may be indicative of different cognitive strategies used to produce a recognition response. We argue that individual analyses in conjunction with group analyses are likely to be critical in fully understanding the relationship between retrieval processes and underlying neural systems.
使用神经成像技术对脑功能进行定位通常依赖于对受试者群体的统计分析，以便识别激活位点，尤其是在情景记忆研究中。单纯依靠群体分析可能不利于理解大脑激活的真正潜在认知本质。在本综述中，我们发现，与情景记忆提取相关的大脑活动模式在个体受试者中与群体水平的大脑活动模式非常不同。这些差异似乎超出了由于细胞结构差异或空间归一化导致的相对较小的变化。我们回顾了相关证据，即尽管存在广泛的变异性，但大脑活动的个体模式在不同受试者之间差异很大，并且随时间推移是可靠的。我们认为，显著大脑活动的多样但可靠的个体模式可能表明用于产生识别反应的不同认知策略。我们认为，个体分析与群体分析相结合对于全面理解提取过程与潜在神经系统之间的关系可能至关重要。
