Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Clinic and Policlinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
Schizophr Bull. 2021 Oct 21;47(6):1631-1641. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbab074.
Patients with schizophrenia who experience inserted thoughts report a diminished sense of thought authorship. Based on its elusive neural basis, this functional neuroimaging study used a novel setup to convince healthy participants that a technical device triggers thoughts in their stream of consciousness. Self-reports indicate that participants experienced their thoughts as self-generated when they believed the (fake) device was deactivated, and attributed their thoughts externally when they believed the device was activated-an experience usually only reported by patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Distinct activations in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) were observed: ventral mPFC activation was linked to a sense of thought authorship and dorsal mPFC activation to a diminished sense of thought authorship. This functional differentiation corresponds to research on self- and other-oriented reflection processes and on patients with schizophrenia who show abnormal mPFC activation. Results thus support the notion that the mPFC might be involved in thought authorship as well as anomalous self-experiences.
精神分裂症患者会出现被插入的想法，他们会感到思维的自主性降低。基于其难以捉摸的神经基础，这项功能神经影像学研究使用了一种新颖的设置，让健康参与者相信一种技术设备会在他们的意识流中引发想法。自我报告表明，当参与者相信（假）设备关闭时，他们会将自己的想法视为自发产生的，而当他们相信设备打开时，他们会将自己的想法归因于外部——这种体验通常只有被诊断为精神分裂症的患者才会报告。研究观察到内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）的不同激活：腹侧 mPFC 的激活与思维自主性的感觉有关，背侧 mPFC 的激活与思维自主性的降低有关。这种功能上的分化与关于自我和他人导向的反射过程的研究以及表现出异常 mPFC 激活的精神分裂症患者的研究相对应。因此，研究结果支持了这样一种观点，即 mPFC 可能参与思维自主性以及异常的自我体验。
