Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
J Neurosci. 2011 Nov 23;31(47):17260-8. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1193-10.2011.
Relational reasoning, or the ability to identify and consider relationships between multiple mental representations, is a fundamental component of high-level cognition (Robin and Holyoak, 1995). The capacity to reason with relations enables abstract thought and may be at the core of what makes human cognition unique (Penn et al., 2008). This capacity improves throughout childhood and adolescence (Ferrer et al., 2009). Here, we sought to better understand the neural mechanisms that support its emergence. We have hypothesized previously, based on fMRI research in adults, that (1) inferior parietal lobe (IPL) plays a central role in representing relationships between mental representations (first-order relations) and (2) rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC) integrates inputs from IPL to build second-order relational structures (i.e., relations between relations). In the present study, we examined fMRI and cortical thickness data from 85 children and adolescents (ages 6-18 years). Participants performed a relational matching task in which they viewed arrays of four visual stimuli and determined whether two stimuli shared a particular feature (a first-order relational judgment) or whether two pairs of stimuli matched according to the same feature (a second-order relational judgment). fMRI results provide evidence for increased functional selectivity across ages 6-18 years in RLPFC and IPL. Specifically, young children engaged RLPFC and IPL indiscriminately for first-order and second-order relational judgments, and activation for first-order relations diminished with age whereas activation for second-order relations stayed elevated. Examination of cortical thickness revealed that increased functional selectivity in RLPFC could be partly accounted for by cortical thinning in IPL.
关系推理，或识别和考虑多个心理表象之间关系的能力，是高级认知的基本组成部分（Robin 和 Holyoak，1995）。用关系进行推理的能力使抽象思维成为可能，并且可能是人类认知独特性的核心（Penn 等人，2008）。这种能力在儿童期和青春期不断提高（Ferrer 等人，2009）。在这里，我们试图更好地了解支持其出现的神经机制。我们之前根据成人 fMRI 研究提出假设，（1）顶下小叶（IPL）在表示心理表象之间的关系（一阶关系）方面起着核心作用，（2）额侧前皮层（RLPFC）整合来自 IPL 的输入以构建二阶关系结构（即，关系之间的关系）。在本研究中，我们检查了 85 名儿童和青少年（6-18 岁）的 fMRI 和皮质厚度数据。参与者进行了关系匹配任务，他们观察了四个视觉刺激的数组，并确定两个刺激是否共享特定特征（一阶关系判断），或者两个刺激对是否根据相同特征匹配（二阶关系判断）。fMRI 结果提供了证据，证明 RLPFC 和 IPL 的功能选择性在 6-18 岁年龄组之间增加。具体来说，年幼的儿童在一阶和二阶关系判断中不加区分地使用 RLPFC 和 IPL，而一阶关系的激活随年龄而减弱，而二阶关系的激活保持升高。皮质厚度的检查表明，RLPFC 中功能选择性的增加部分可以用 IPL 中的皮质变薄来解释。
