Geraci Alessandra, Surian Luca, Ferraro Marco, Cantagallo Anna
Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Corso Bettini 31, Rovereto (TN), Italy.
Brain Inj. 2010;24(7-8):978-87. doi: 10.3109/02699052.2010.487477.
Previous studies on patients with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and diffuse brain damages have reported selective deficits in mental states reasoning or 'Theory of Mind' (ToM). The goal of the current study is to investigate the fundamental role of the prefrontal cortex in two ToM components: inferential reasoning and social perception.
Selective cognitive impairments following a TBI provide crucial evidence for assessing competing models of specific aspects of the cognitive system.
This study compared the performance of patients with predominantly focal lesions in the ventromedial (n = 11) or dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (n = 7) with matched controls (n = 20). All subjects performed two ToM tasks: the Eyes Test and the Faux-pas Test.
It was found that both groups of patients performed equally poorly on the Eyes Test, but only patients with predominantly lesions in the ventromedial cortex performed poorly on the Faux-pas test. The group effects on ToM tasks could not be reduced to differences in the global severity of brain injuries.
These results provide evidence supporting some current models of the fractionation of the mind-reading system and support the claim that the ventromedial cortex plays a fundamental role in inferential reasoning.
先前针对创伤性脑损伤（TBI）和弥漫性脑损伤患者的研究报告了心理状态推理或“心理理论”（ToM）方面的选择性缺陷。本研究的目的是调查前额叶皮质在心理理论的两个组成部分中的基本作用：推理和社会认知。
创伤性脑损伤后的选择性认知障碍为评估认知系统特定方面的竞争模型提供了关键证据。
本研究比较了主要在腹内侧（n = 11）或背外侧前额叶皮质有局灶性损伤的患者（n = 7）与匹配对照组（n = 20）的表现。所有受试者都进行了两项心理理论任务：眼睛测试和失礼测试。
发现两组患者在眼睛测试中的表现同样差，但只有主要在腹内侧皮质有损伤的患者在失礼测试中表现不佳。心理理论任务的组效应不能归结为脑损伤整体严重程度的差异。
这些结果为支持当前一些关于读心系统细分的模型提供了证据，并支持腹内侧皮质在推理中起基本作用这一观点。
