Department of Neuroradiology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Neuroimage. 2011 Apr 15;55(4):1899-911. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.12.036. Epub 2010 Dec 21.
Mentalizing, i.e. the process of inferring another person's mental state, is thought to be primarily subserved by three brain regions, the VMPFC (ventromedial prefrontal cortex), precuneus and TPJ (temporo-parietal junction). However, it is still unclear what the exact roles of these regions in mentalizing are. Here, we compare activity within, and functional connectivity between, the VMPFC, precuneus and TPJ during two different mentalizing tasks. Specifically, we examine whether inferring another person's emotion ("emotion mentalizing") and inferring another person's intention ("intention mentalizing") activate similar or distinct subregions within the VMPFC, precuneus and TPJ, and whether these different kinds of mentalizing are associated with different patterns of functional connectivity between these regions. Our results indicate that emotion mentalizing and intention mentalizing activate partly distinct subregions of the right and left TPJ that can be spatially separated across participants. These subregions also showed different patterns of functional connectivity with the VMPFC: a more anterior region of the right and left TPJ, which was more strongly activated during emotion mentalizing, showed stronger functional connectivity with the VMPFC, particularly during emotion mentalizing, than a more posterior region that was more strongly activated during intention mentalizing. Critically, this double dissociation became evident only when the fine-scale distribution of activity within activated regions was analysed, and despite the fact that there was also a significant overlap of activity during the two tasks. Our findings provide first evidence that different neural modules might have evolved within the TPJ that show distinct patterns of functional connectivity and might subserve slightly different subfunctions of mentalizing.
心理化，即推断他人心理状态的过程，被认为主要由三个大脑区域支持，即 VMPFC（腹内侧前额叶皮层）、楔前叶和 TPJ（颞顶叶交界处）。然而，这些区域在心理化过程中的具体作用仍不清楚。在这里，我们比较了在两种不同的心理化任务中 VMPFC、楔前叶和 TPJ 内的活动以及它们之间的功能连接。具体来说，我们检查了推断他人的情绪（“情绪心理化”）和推断他人的意图（“意图心理化”）是否会激活 VMPFC、楔前叶和 TPJ 内的相似或不同的子区域，以及这两种不同的心理化是否与这些区域之间不同的功能连接模式相关。我们的结果表明，情绪心理化和意图心理化激活了右和左 TPJ 的部分不同的子区域，这些子区域可以在参与者之间进行空间分离。这些子区域与 VMPFC 的功能连接模式也不同：在情绪心理化过程中更强烈激活的右和左 TPJ 的一个更靠前的区域与 VMPFC 的功能连接更强，特别是在情绪心理化过程中，而在意图心理化过程中更强烈激活的一个更靠后的区域与 VMPFC 的功能连接较弱。关键的是，只有当分析激活区域内的活动的精细分布时，才会出现这种双重分离，尽管在这两种任务中也存在显著的活动重叠。我们的发现首次提供了证据，表明在 TPJ 内可能已经进化出不同的神经模块，这些模块具有不同的功能连接模式，并可能支持心理化的稍微不同的子功能。
