University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Department of Neurology, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States.
Neuropsychologia. 2012 Apr;50(5):674-87. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.01.004. Epub 2012 Jan 10.
Pronouns are extraordinarily common in daily language yet little is known about the neural mechanisms that support decisions about pronoun reference. We propose a large-scale neural network for resolving pronoun reference that consists of two components. First, a core language network in peri-Sylvian cortex supports syntactic and semantic resources for interpreting pronoun meaning in sentences. Second, a frontal-parietal network that supports strategic decision-making is recruited to support probabilistic and risk-related components of resolving a pronoun's referent. In an fMRI study of healthy young adults, we observed activation of left inferior frontal and superior temporal cortex, consistent with a language network. We also observed activation of brain regions not associated with traditional language areas. By manipulating the context of the pronoun, we were able to demonstrate recruitment of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during probabilistic evaluation of a pronoun's reference, and orbital frontal activation when a pronoun must adopt a risky referent. Together, these findings are consistent with a two-component model for resolving a pronoun's reference that includes neuroanatomic regions supporting core linguistic and decision-making mechanisms.
代词在日常语言中极为常见，但我们对支持代词指代决策的神经机制知之甚少。我们提出了一个大规模的神经网络来解决代词指代问题，该网络由两个组件组成。首先，外侧裂周围皮层中的核心语言网络支持解释句子中代词含义的句法和语义资源。其次，支持策略决策的额顶网络被招募来支持解决代词指代的概率和风险相关成分。在一项针对健康年轻成年人的 fMRI 研究中，我们观察到左额下回和颞上回的激活，与语言网络一致。我们还观察到与传统语言区域无关的脑区的激活。通过操纵代词的上下文，我们能够证明在对代词的参考进行概率评估时背外侧前额叶皮层的募集，以及当代词必须采用风险参考时眶额叶的激活。总的来说，这些发现与一个用于解决代词指代问题的两成分模型一致，该模型包括支持核心语言和决策机制的神经解剖区域。
