Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA; School of Psychology, Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
Autism Research Centre, Cambridge University, Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge, UK.
Neuroimage. 2015 Jan 15;105:300-11. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.09.041. Epub 2014 Sep 28.
Increasing research evidence suggests that women are more advanced than men in pragmatic language comprehension and Theory of Mind (ToM), which is a cognitive component of empathy. We measured the hemodynamic responses of men and women while they performed a second-order false-belief (FB) task and a coherent story (CS) task. During the FB condition relative to the baseline (unlinked sentences [US]), we found convergent activity in ToM network regions, such as the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) bilaterally and precuneus, in both sexes. We also found a greater activity in the left medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and a greater deactivation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)/orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) bilaterally in women compared to men. However, we did not find difference in the brain activity between the sexes during the FB condition relative to the CS condition. The results suggest a significant overlap between neural bases of pragmatic language comprehension and ToM in both men and women. Taken together, these results are in line with the extreme male brain (EMB) hypothesis by demonstrating sex difference in the neural basis of ToM and pragmatic language, both of which are found to be impaired in individuals with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC). In addition, the results also suggest that on average women use both cognitive empathy (dorsal mPFC) and affective empathy (vmPFC) networks more than men for false-belief reasoning.
越来越多的研究证据表明，女性在语用语言理解和心理理论（ToM）方面比男性更先进，而 ToM 是同理心的认知组成部分。我们测量了男性和女性在执行二阶错误信念（FB）任务和连贯故事（CS）任务时的血液动力学反应。在 FB 条件下（与基线相比，无关联的句子 [US]），我们发现了两性中 ToM 网络区域的一致活动，如颞顶联合区（TPJ）双侧和楔前叶。我们还发现女性的左内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）活动更强，而腹内侧前额叶皮层（vmPFC）/眶额皮层（OFC）双侧的去激活程度更大。然而，我们没有发现两性在 FB 条件下相对于 CS 条件下的大脑活动存在差异。结果表明，男性和女性的语用语言理解和 ToM 的神经基础存在显著重叠。总的来说，这些结果与极端男性大脑（EMB）假说一致，即证明了 ToM 和语用语言的神经基础存在性别差异，而这两者在自闭症谱系障碍（ASC）个体中都被发现存在损伤。此外，结果还表明，女性在进行错误信念推理时，平均而言比男性更多地使用认知同理心（背侧 mPFC）和情感同理心（腹侧 mPFC）网络。
