Duval Céline, Desgranges Béatrice, Eustache Francis, Piolino Pascale
Inserm - EPHE - Université de Caen Basse-Normandie, Unité 923, GIP Cyceron, CHU Côte de Nacre, Caen, Université Paris Descartes, Institut de psychologie, CNRS, UMR 8189, Paris, France.
Psychol Neuropsychiatr Vieil. 2009 Mar;7(1):7-19. doi: 10.1684/pnv.2009.0163.
Cognitive neurosciences are interested in the concept of self, resulting from two muddled aspects. This concept relates to both a set of personal complex and multidimensional mental representations about ourselves and the flow of self-consciousness which is associated. It grounds individual identity and is related to the subjectivity of the personal experiences, at the core of continuity over the time. The existence of others seems essential in the construction of self mental representations; that is why the concept of self is strongly related to the theory of mind (ToM). ToM corresponds to the capacity to infer representations or mental states to others. Even if self and ToM researches are often carried out in two distinct fields, it seems like these two concepts share common processes. Recent imaging studies comfort this idea. Activations in a common neuronal network (principally median prefrontal cortex and precuneus) were found during the realization of self or ToM tasks. Thus, our capacity to represent our thoughts and others' one coud have a similar cerebral origin. Self-consciousness and consciousness of others could then be considered as a bidirectional interaction at the very bases of both individual identity and the other's knowledge, which regulate behavior and social interactions.
认知神经科学对自我概念感兴趣，这源于两个模糊的方面。这个概念既涉及一组关于我们自己的个人复杂且多维的心理表征，也涉及与之相关的自我意识流。它奠定了个体身份，并与个人经历的主观性相关，处于时间连续性的核心。他人的存在似乎在自我心理表征的构建中至关重要；这就是为什么自我概念与心理理论（ToM）密切相关。心理理论对应于推断他人表征或心理状态的能力。即使自我和心理理论的研究通常在两个不同的领域进行，但这两个概念似乎共享共同的过程。最近的成像研究证实了这一观点。在执行自我或心理理论任务期间，发现一个共同的神经网络（主要是内侧前额叶皮质和楔前叶）被激活。因此，我们表征自己思想和他人思想的能力可能有相似的大脑起源。自我意识和他人意识可以被视为在个体身份和他人认知的基础上的双向互动，它调节行为和社会互动。
