Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Harvard University Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Child Dev. 2012 Nov;83(6):1853-68. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01829.x. Epub 2012 Jul 31.
Thinking about other people's thoughts recruits a specific group of brain regions, including the temporo-parietal junctions (TPJ), precuneus (PC), and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). The same brain regions were recruited when children (N=20, 5-11 years) and adults (N=8) listened to descriptions of characters' mental states, compared to descriptions of physical events. Between ages 5 and 11 years, responses in the bilateral TPJ became increasingly specific to stories describing mental states as opposed to people's appearance and social relationships. Functional activity in the right TPJ was related to children's performance on a high level theory of mind task. These findings provide insights into the origin of neural mechanisms of theory of mind, and how behavioral and neural changes can be related in development.
思考他人的想法会激活特定的脑区，包括颞顶联合区（TPJ）、楔前叶（PC）和内侧前额叶皮质（MPFC）。当儿童（N=20，5-11 岁）和成人（N=8）听人物心理状态的描述与身体事件的描述相比时，大脑的相同区域被激活。在 5 至 11 岁之间，双侧 TPJ 的反应变得越来越针对描述心理状态的故事，而不是人的外貌和社会关系。右 TPJ 的功能活动与儿童在高水平心理理论任务上的表现相关。这些发现为心理理论的神经机制的起源提供了深入的了解，以及在发展过程中如何将行为和神经变化联系起来。
