Wang Li, Li Mengyi, Yang Tao, Wang Li, Zhou Xinlin
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
Advanced Innovation Center for Future Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 102206, China.
Cereb Cortex. 2021 Nov 23;32(1):123-136. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhab198.
Mathematics and science are highly integrated disciplines, but the brain association between mathematics and science remains unclear. The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of 34 undergraduates (17 males, mean age = 20.3±1.64 years old) while they completed mathematical, physical and chemical principles, arithmetic computation, and sentence comprehension. We examined neural activation level, neural activation pattern, and neural connectivity to investigate the neural associations between mathematics and science (including physics and chemistry). The results showed that mathematical, physical, and chemical principles elicited similar neural activation level and neural activation pattern in the visuospatial network (mainly in the middle frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobule), which were different from those elicited by sentence comprehension; those three principles also elicited similar neural activation level and neural activation pattern in the semantic network (mainly in the middle temporal gyrus, angular gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex), in contrast to that elicited by arithmetic computation. Effective connectivity analyses showed stronger connectivity between the middle temporal gyrus and inferior parietal lobule for mathematical, physical, and chemical principles than for sentence comprehension. The results suggest that visuospatial and semantic networks were critical for processing both mathematics and science.
数学和科学是高度融合的学科，但数学与科学之间的大脑关联仍不明确。当前研究对34名本科生（17名男性，平均年龄 = 20.3±1.64岁）进行功能磁共振成像（fMRI）扫描，扫描时他们正在完成数学、物理和化学原理、算术计算以及句子理解任务。我们检查了神经激活水平、神经激活模式和神经连通性，以研究数学与科学（包括物理和化学）之间的神经关联。结果显示，数学、物理和化学原理在视觉空间网络（主要位于额中回和顶下小叶）中引发了相似的神经激活水平和神经激活模式，这与句子理解所引发的情况不同；这三个原理在语义网络（主要位于颞中回、角回、额下回和背内侧前额叶皮质）中也引发了相似的神经激活水平和神经激活模式，与算术计算所引发的情况形成对比。有效连通性分析表明，与句子理解相比，数学、物理和化学原理在颞中回和顶下小叶之间的连通性更强。结果表明，视觉空间网络和语义网络对于处理数学和科学都至关重要。
