Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
US Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, USA.
Sci Rep. 2017 Feb 27;7:43250. doi: 10.1038/srep43250.
Brain activity in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) during exposure to persuasive messages can predict health behavior change. This brain-behavior relationship has been linked to areas of MPFC previously associated with self-related processing; however, the mechanism underlying this relationship is unclear. We explore two components of self-related processing - self-reflection and subjective valuation - and examine coherent activity between relevant networks of brain regions during exposure to health messages encouraging exercise and discouraging sedentary behaviors. We find that objectively logged reductions in sedentary behavior in the following month are linked to functional connectivity within brain regions associated with positive valuation, but not within regions associated with self-reflection on personality traits. Furthermore, functional connectivity between valuation regions contributes additional information compared to average brain activation within single brain regions. These data support an account in which MPFC integrates the value of messages to the self during persuasive health messaging and speak to broader questions of how humans make decisions about how to behave.
在接触有说服力的信息时，内侧前额叶皮层（MPFC）的大脑活动可以预测健康行为的改变。这种大脑-行为关系与之前与自我相关处理相关的 MPFC 区域有关; 然而，这种关系的机制尚不清楚。我们探讨了自我相关处理的两个组成部分 - 自我反思和主观评估 - 并在暴露于鼓励运动和抑制久坐行为的健康信息时检查相关脑区网络之间的相干活动。我们发现，下个月客观记录的久坐行为减少与与积极评估相关的脑区的功能连接有关，而与与个性特征的自我反思相关的脑区无关。此外，与单个脑区的平均大脑激活相比，评估区域之间的功能连接提供了更多信息。这些数据支持这样一种解释，即 MPFC 在有说服力的健康信息传递过程中整合了信息对自我的价值，并说明了人类如何就如何行为做出决策的更广泛问题。
