The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2011 Jun;6(3):286-93. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsq038. Epub 2010 May 7.
Prior research has shown that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) plays an important role in the representation of the evaluation of stimuli, regardless of stimulus modality. Based on these findings, researchers have proposed that the OFC serves a common currency function, allowing for the direct comparison of different types of perceptual stimuli (e.g. food, drink, money). The present study was designed to extend this research and investigate whether these same regions of OFC that have been identified in previous research are involved in evaluating imagined stimuli. Specifically, we asked participants to draw on prior attitudinal knowledge to generate internal representations of liked and disliked exemplars from different categories during functional magnetic resonance imaging. The results of this study support the idea that imagined stimuli (regardless of stimulus category) are evaluated in the OFC using a common system that has been identified in previous research for externally perceived stimuli.
先前的研究表明，眶额皮层（OFC）在刺激评价的表示中起着重要作用，而与刺激模式无关。基于这些发现，研究人员提出，OFC 起到了共同货币的作用，允许对不同类型的感知刺激（例如食物、饮料、金钱）进行直接比较。本研究旨在扩展这一研究，并调查以前研究中确定的相同的 OFC 区域是否参与评估想象中的刺激。具体来说，我们要求参与者利用先前的态度知识，在功能磁共振成像期间生成来自不同类别的喜欢和不喜欢范例的内部表示。这项研究的结果支持了这样一种观点，即想象中的刺激（无论刺激类别如何）都在以前研究中确定的用于外部感知刺激的相同系统中在 OFC 中进行评估。
