Firat Rengin B
Department of Sociology, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, United States.
Front Sociol. 2019 Feb 14;4:3. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2019.00003. eCollection 2019.
Previous research has provided theoretical frameworks for building inter-disciplinary bridges between sociology and the neurosciences; yet, more anatomically, or functionally focused perspectives offering detailed information to sociologists are largely missing from the literature. This manuscript addresses this gap by offering a comprehensive review of the functions of the frontal lobes, arguably the most important brain region involved in various "human" skills ranging from abstract thinking to language. The paper proposes that the functions of the frontal lobe sub-regions can be divided into three inter-related hierarchical systems with varying degrees of causal proximity in regulating human behavior and social connectedness: (a) the most proximate, voluntary, controlled behavior-including motor functions underlying action-perception and mirror neurons, (b) more abstract motivation and emotional regulation-such as Theory of Mind and empathy, and (c) the higher-order executive functioning-e.g., inhibition of racial bias. The paper offers insights from the social neuroscience literature on phenomena that lie at the core of social theory and research including moral cognition and behavior, and empathy and inter-group attitudes and provides future research questions for interdisciplinary research.
以往的研究为在社会学与神经科学之间搭建跨学科桥梁提供了理论框架；然而，从解剖学或功能角度更聚焦、能为社会学家提供详细信息的观点在文献中却基本缺失。本手稿通过全面综述额叶的功能来填补这一空白，额叶可以说是参与从抽象思维到语言等各种“人类”技能的最重要脑区。本文提出，额叶子区域的功能可分为三个相互关联的层次系统，在调节人类行为和社会联系方面具有不同程度的因果接近性：(a) 最直接的、自愿的、受控制的行为，包括行动感知和镜像神经元背后的运动功能；(b) 更抽象的动机和情绪调节，如心理理论和同理心；(c) 高阶执行功能，例如抑制种族偏见。本文从社会神经科学文献中汲取见解，探讨了处于社会理论和研究核心的现象，包括道德认知与行为、同理心以及群体间态度，并为跨学科研究提出了未来的研究问题。
