Le Petit Marine, Eustache Francis, Perrier Joy, de La Sayette Vincent, Desgranges Béatrice, Laisney Mickaël
Normandie Univ, UNICAEN, PSL Université Paris, EPHE, INSERM, U1077, CHU de Caen, Centre Cyceron, Neuropsychologie et Imagerie de la Mémoire Humaine, 14000 Caen, France.
Cereb Cortex Commun. 2022 Jul 31;3(3):tgac032. doi: 10.1093/texcom/tgac032. eCollection 2022.
The medial prefrontal cortex is a key region of mindreading belonging to the mentalizing system, a set of brain areas underlying mental state inference based on reasoning on social concepts. The aim of this study was to characterize the functional connectivity between regions involved in mindreading and to highlight the processes it underpins, focusing on the dorsal and ventral parts of the medial prefrontal cortex. We analyzed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging of 56 healthy volunteers, to study the relationship between mindreading abilities and functional connectivity of the medial prefrontal cortex. Cognitive mindreading performances were correlated with connectivity between the medial prefrontal cortex and frontal regions involved in the regulation of the salience of one's own mental contents, with a distinction between the dorsal part connected to regions subtending inhibition processes and the ventral part to emotional regions. Affective mindreading performances were negatively correlated with negative connectivity of the ventro- and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex with sensorimotor regions belonging to the mirror neuron system subtending the simulation of mental states. These findings suggested a role of the medial prefrontal cortex to decrease the salience of one's own mental content and in the antisynchronous interaction between the mentalizing and mirror neurons systems.
内侧前额叶皮层是心智解读的关键区域，属于心理化系统，这是一组基于社会概念推理进行心理状态推断的脑区。本研究的目的是描述心智解读相关区域之间的功能连接，并突出其支撑的过程，重点关注内侧前额叶皮层的背侧和腹侧部分。我们分析了56名健康志愿者的静息态功能磁共振成像，以研究心智解读能力与内侧前额叶皮层功能连接之间的关系。认知心智解读表现与内侧前额叶皮层和参与调节自身心理内容显著性的额叶区域之间的连接相关，其中与抑制过程相关区域相连的背侧部分和与情感区域相连的腹侧部分有所区别。情感心智解读表现与腹内侧和背内侧前额叶皮层与属于镜像神经元系统的感觉运动区域的负性连接呈负相关，该镜像神经元系统支撑心理状态的模拟。这些发现表明内侧前额叶皮层在降低自身心理内容的显著性以及在心理化和镜像神经元系统的反同步相互作用中发挥作用。
