Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2010 Oct;22(10):2151-63. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2009.21387.
Knowledge about cause and effect relationships (e.g., virus-epidemic) is essential for predicting changes in the environment and for anticipating the consequences of events and one's own actions. Although there is evidence that predictions and learning from prediction errors are instrumental in acquiring causal knowledge, it is unclear whether prediction error circuitry remains involved in the mental representation and evaluation of causal knowledge already stored in semantic memory. In an fMRI study, participants assessed whether pairs of words were causally related (e.g., virus-epidemic) or noncausally associated (e.g., emerald-ring). In a second fMRI study, a task cue prompted the participants to evaluate either the causal or the noncausal associative relationship between pairs of words. Causally related pairs elicited higher activity in OFC, amygdala, striatum, and substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area than noncausally associated pairs. These regions were also more activated by the causal than by the associative task cue. This network overlaps with the mesolimbic and mesocortical dopaminergic network known to code prediction errors, suggesting that prediction error processing might participate in assessments of causality even under conditions when it is not explicitly required to make predictions.
关于因果关系的知识（例如，病毒-流行）对于预测环境变化以及预测事件和自身行为的后果至关重要。尽管有证据表明，预测和从预测错误中学习对于获取因果知识很有帮助，但尚不清楚预测错误回路是否仍然参与已经存储在语义记忆中的因果知识的心理表征和评估。在一项 fMRI 研究中，参与者评估了单词对是否存在因果关系（例如，病毒-流行）或非因果关联（例如，翡翠环）。在第二项 fMRI 研究中，任务提示促使参与者评估单词对之间的因果或非因果联想关系。与非因果相关的词对相比，因果相关的词对在眶额皮层、杏仁核、纹状体和黑质/腹侧被盖区引起更高的活动。与联想任务提示相比，这些区域也更容易被因果关系任务提示激活。该网络与已知编码预测错误的中脑边缘和中脑皮质多巴胺能网络重叠，表明即使在不需要明确进行预测的情况下，预测错误处理也可能参与因果关系的评估。
