文档介绍：doi: SCAN (2006) 1, 229–234
Overlapping and non-overlapping brain regions
for theory of mind and self reflection in
individual subjects
a Saxe, Joseph M. Moran, Jonathan Scholz, and John Gabrieli
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
When subjects are required to reason about someone’s false belief, a consistent pattern of brain regions are recruited including
the medial prefrontal cortex, medial precuneus and bilateral temporo-parietal junction. Previous group analyses suggest that the
two medial regions, but not the lateral regions, are also recruited when subjects engage in self-reflection. The current study
pared the results of the ‘false belief’ and ‘self’ tasks in individual subjects. Consistent with previous reports, the
medial prefrontal and medial precuneus regions recruited by the two tasks significantly overlap in individual subjects, although
there was also evidence for non-overlapping voxels in medial regions. The temporo-parietal regions are only recruited for the
‘theory of mind’ task. Six possible models of the relationship between theory of mind, self-reflection and autobiographical
memory, all consistent with both neurobiological and developmental evidence to date, are discussed.
Keywords: theory of mind; self; fMRI; individual subjects; temporo-parietal junction; medial prefrontal cortex; pr