Department of Diagnostic Imaging, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada.
Department of Neuroscience & Mental Health, The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, Toronto, Canada.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2017 Nov;38(11):5577-5589. doi: 10.1002/hbm.23750. Epub 2017 Aug 2.
Very preterm (VPT) birth (<32 weeks' gestational age) has been implicated in social-cognitive deficits including Theory of Mind (ToM); the ability to attribute mental states to others and understand that those beliefs can differ from one's own or reality. The neural bases for ToM deficits in VPT born children have not been examined. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) for its excellent spatial and temporal resolution to determine the neural underpinnings of ToM in 24 VPT and 24 full-term born (FT) children (7-13 years). VPT children performed more poorly on neuropsychological measures of ToM but not inhibition. In the MEG task, both FT children and VPT children recruited regions involved in false belief processing such as the rIFG (VPT: 275-350 ms, FT: 250-375 ms) and left inferior temporal gyrus (VPT: 375-450 ms, FT: 325-375 ms) and right fusiform gyrus (VPT: 150-200 ms, FT: 175-250 ms). The rIPL (included in the temporal-parietal junction) was recruited in FT children (475-575 ms) and the lTPJ in VPT children (500-575 ms). However, activations in all regions were reduced in the VPT compared to the FT group. We suggest that with increasing social-cognitive demands such as varying the type of scenarios in the standardized measure of ToM, reduced activations in the rIFG and TPJ in the VPT group may reflect the decreased performance. With access to both spatial and temporal information, we discuss the role of domain general and specific regions of the ToM network in both groups. Hum Brain Mapp 38:5577-5589, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
极早产儿（VPT）出生（<32 周胎龄）与社会认知缺陷有关，包括心理理论（ToM）；即归因于他人心理状态并理解这些信念可能与自己或现实不同的能力。VPT 出生的儿童的 ToM 缺陷的神经基础尚未得到研究。我们使用脑磁图（MEG），因其具有出色的空间和时间分辨率，来确定 24 名 VPT 和 24 名足月出生（FT）儿童（7-13 岁）的 ToM 的神经基础。VPT 儿童在心理理论的神经心理学测试中表现较差，但在抑制方面表现正常。在 MEG 任务中，FT 儿童和 VPT 儿童都招募了涉及错误信念处理的区域，例如 rIFG（VPT：275-350ms，FT：250-375ms）和左侧颞下回（VPT：375-450ms，FT：325-375ms）和右侧梭状回（VPT：150-200ms，FT：175-250ms）。rIPL（包含在颞顶交界处）在 FT 儿童中被招募（475-575ms），而 lTPJ 在 VPT 儿童中被招募（500-575ms）。然而，与 FT 组相比，VPT 组的所有区域的激活都减少了。我们认为，随着社会认知需求的增加，例如在 ToM 的标准化测量中改变情景类型，VPT 组 rIFG 和 TPJ 的激活减少可能反映了表现下降。我们利用空间和时间信息的双重优势，讨论了 ToM 网络的一般和特定区域在两组中的作用。人类大脑映射 38：5577-5589，2017。©2017 威利期刊公司。
