Harris Sam, Sheth Sameer A, Cohen Mark S
University of California Los Angeles Brain Mapping Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Ann Neurol. 2008 Feb;63(2):141-7. doi: 10.1002/ana.21301.
The difference between believing and disbelieving a proposition is one of the most potent regulators of human behavior and emotion. When one accepts a statement as true, it becomes the basis for further thought and action; rejected as false, it remains a string of words. The purpose of this study was to differentiate belief, disbelief, and uncertainty at the level of the brain.
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the brains of 14 adults while they judged written statements to be "true" (belief), "false" (disbelief), or "undecidable" (uncertainty). To characterize belief, disbelief, and uncertainty in a content-independent manner, we included statements from a wide range of categories: autobiographical, mathematical, geographical, religious, ethical, semantic, and factual.
The states of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty differentially activated distinct regions of the prefrontal and parietal cortices, as well as the basal ganglia.
Belief and disbelief differ from uncertainty in that both provide information that can subsequently inform behavior and emotion. The mechanism underlying this difference appears to involve the anterior cingulate cortex and the caudate. Although many areas of higher cognition are likely involved in assessing the truth-value of linguistic propositions, the final acceptance of a statement as "true" or its rejection as "false" appears to rely on more primitive, hedonic processing in the medial prefrontal cortex and the anterior insula. Truth may be beauty, and beauty truth, in more than a metaphorical sense, and false propositions may actually disgust us.
相信与不相信一个命题之间的差异是人类行为和情感最有力的调节因素之一。当一个人接受一个陈述为真时，它就成为进一步思考和行动的基础；若被当作假的而拒绝，它就只是一串文字。本研究的目的是在大脑层面区分相信、怀疑和不确定。
我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）研究了14名成年人在判断书面陈述为“真”（相信）、“假”（怀疑）或“无法判定”（不确定）时的大脑活动。为了以一种与内容无关的方式来描述相信、怀疑和不确定，我们纳入了广泛类别的陈述：自传体、数学、地理、宗教、伦理、语义和事实性的。
相信、怀疑和不确定状态分别激活了前额叶和顶叶皮质以及基底神经节的不同区域。
相信和怀疑与不确定的不同之处在于，两者都提供了随后可指导行为和情感的信息。这种差异背后的机制似乎涉及前扣带回皮质和尾状核。尽管许多高级认知区域可能参与评估语言命题的真值，但最终将一个陈述接受为“真”或将其拒绝为“假”似乎依赖于内侧前额叶皮质和前岛叶中更原始的享乐加工。从不止一种隐喻意义上来说，真理可能是美，美可能是真理，而错误命题实际上可能会令我们厌恶。
