Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Mitte, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Mitte, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
Neuroimage. 2014 Sep;98:314-23. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.05.003. Epub 2014 May 11.
Coordinated triadic interactions, involving oneself, another person, and an external object, are considered a uniquely human skill. However, the exact mechanisms underlying the ability to engage in such social interactions remain hitherto unknown. We used functional neuroimaging to investigate the neural signature of triadic interactions. For this purpose, participants viewed pictures of objects in a 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner and were asked whether they could imagine this object in a social interaction with another person. We also aimed to dissociate this process from, as well as to find commonalities with, purely self-referential or other-referential processing. In all trial-types, we found activations in core mentalizing brain areas (medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus and temporoparietal junction). Furthermore, triadic engagements, but not self-referential or other-referential processing, were associated with activations in classical mirror neuron areas (inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobe). Finally, mentalizing networks showed a strong functional connectivity with mirror neuron areas exclusively during triadic engagements. These results suggest that the imagined interaction of two agents is processed in a more complex neural social cognitive network than purely self- or other-referential considerations.
协调的三元互动，涉及自己、他人和外部对象，被认为是人类独有的技能。然而，参与这种社会互动的能力的确切机制迄今尚不清楚。我们使用功能神经影像学来研究三元互动的神经特征。为此，参与者在 3T 功能磁共振成像扫描仪中观看物体的图片，并被要求判断他们是否可以想象这个物体与另一个人在社会互动中出现。我们还旨在将这个过程与纯粹的自我参照或他人参照过程区分开来，并找到它们的共同之处。在所有的试次类型中，我们都发现了核心心理化脑区（内侧前额叶皮层、后扣带回皮层、楔前叶和颞顶联合区）的激活。此外，三元互动，而不是自我参照或他人参照处理，与经典镜像神经元区域（额下回和顶下小叶）的激活有关。最后，心理化网络仅在三元互动时与镜像神经元区域显示出强烈的功能连接。这些结果表明，两个主体的想象互动是在一个比纯粹的自我或他人参照考虑更复杂的神经社会认知网络中进行处理的。
