Corradi-Dell'Acqua Corrado, Hofstetter Christoph, Vuilleumier Patrik
Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, CH-1205 Geneva, Switzerland and Laboratory for Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Neurosciences and Clinic of Neurology, University Medical Center, CH-1211 Geneva, SwitzerlandSwiss Centre for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, CH-1205 Geneva, Switzerland and Laboratory for Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Neurosciences and Clinic of Neurology, University Medical Center, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, CH-1205 Geneva, Switzerland and Laboratory for Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Neurosciences and Clinic of Neurology, University Medical Center, CH-1211 Geneva, SwitzerlandSwiss Centre for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, CH-1205 Geneva, Switzerland and Laboratory for Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Neurosciences and Clinic of Neurology, University Medical Center, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2014 Aug;9(8):1175-84. doi: 10.1093/scan/nst097. Epub 2013 Jun 14.
Understanding emotions in others engages specific brain regions in temporal and medial prefrontal cortices. These activations are often attributed to more general cognitive 'mentalizing' functions, associated with theory of mind and also necessary to represent people's non-emotional mental states, such as beliefs or intentions. Here, we directly investigated whether understanding emotional feelings recruit similar or specific brain systems, relative to other non-emotional mental states. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging with multivoxel pattern analysis in 46 volunteers to compare activation patterns in theory-of-mind tasks for emotions, relative to beliefs or somatic states accompanied with pain. We found a striking dissociation between the temporoparietal cortex, that exhibited a remarkable voxel-by-voxel pattern overlap between emotions and beliefs (but not pain), and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, that exhibited distinct (and yet nearby) patterns of activity during the judgment of beliefs and emotions in others. Pain judgment was instead associated with activity in the supramarginal gyrus, middle cingulate cortex and middle insular cortex. Our data reveal for the first time a functional dissociation within brain networks sub-serving theory of mind for different mental contents, with a common recruitment for cognitive and affective states in temporal regions, and distinct recruitment in prefrontal areas.
理解他人的情绪会激活颞叶和内侧前额叶皮质中的特定脑区。这些激活通常归因于更一般的认知“心理化”功能，与心理理论相关，并且对于表征人们的非情绪心理状态（如信念或意图）也是必要的。在这里，我们直接研究了相对于其他非情绪心理状态，理解情感感受是否会激活相似或特定的脑系统。我们对46名志愿者进行了功能磁共振成像和多体素模式分析，以比较在心理理论任务中，相对于信念或伴有疼痛的躯体状态，情绪的激活模式。我们发现颞顶叶皮质存在显著分离，即情绪和信念之间在逐个体素模式上有显著重叠（但与疼痛无重叠），而背内侧前额叶皮质在判断他人的信念和情绪时表现出不同（但相邻）的活动模式。相反，疼痛判断与缘上回、中扣带回皮质和脑岛中部皮质的活动相关。我们的数据首次揭示了在为不同心理内容服务的心理理论的脑网络中存在功能分离，颞叶区域对认知和情感状态有共同激活，而前额叶区域有不同激活。
