Institute of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yueyang Road 320, Shanghai 200031, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yanqihu East Road 1, Beijing 101408, China.
Cereb Cortex. 2024 Apr 1;34(4). doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhae137.
The human brain is distinguished by its ability to perform explicit logical reasoning like transitive inference. This study investigated the functional role of the inferior parietal cortex in transitive inference with functional MRI. Participants viewed premises describing abstract relations among items. They accurately recalled the relationship between old pairs of items, effectively inferred the relationship between new pairs of items, and discriminated between true and false relationships for new pairs. First, the inferior parietal cortex, but not the hippocampus or lateral prefrontal cortex, was associated with transitive inference. The inferior parietal activity and functional connectivity were modulated by inference (new versus old pairs) and discrimination (true versus false pairs). Moreover, the new/old and true/false pairs were decodable from the inferior parietal representation. Second, the inferior parietal cortex represented an integrated relational structure (ordered and directed series). The inferior parietal activity was modulated by serial position (larger end versus center pairs). The inferior parietal representation was modulated by symbolic distance (adjacent versus distant pairs) and direction (preceding versus following pairs). It suggests that the inferior parietal cortex may flexibly integrate observed relations into a relational structure and use the relational structure to infer unobserved relations and discriminate between true and false relations.
人类大脑的独特之处在于其能够进行明确的逻辑推理,如传递推理。本研究使用功能磁共振成像技术研究了下顶叶皮层在传递推理中的功能作用。参与者观看了描述物品间抽象关系的前提。他们准确地回忆起旧对物品之间的关系,有效地推断出新对物品之间的关系,并区分了新对物品之间的真实和虚假关系。首先,下顶叶皮层,而不是海马体或外侧前额叶皮层,与传递推理有关。下顶叶的活动和功能连接受到推理(新对与旧对)和辨别(真对与假对)的调节。此外,下顶叶的表示可以从新/旧和真/假对中解码。其次,下顶叶皮层代表了一个整合的关系结构(有序和有向的序列)。下顶叶的活动受到序列位置(较大端对与中心对)的调节。下顶叶的表示受到符号距离(相邻对与遥远对)和方向(前对与后对)的调节。这表明下顶叶皮层可能灵活地将观察到的关系整合到关系结构中,并使用关系结构来推断未观察到的关系,以及区分真实和虚假关系。