Pants were instructed that they were performing these tasks in collaboration
Pants have been instructed that they were performing these tasks in collaboration with an experimenter; in other blocks (nonmentalizing situation), participants had been instructed that the experimenter was not involved. In truth, the tasks had been identical in these circumstances. Neuroimaging information revealed adjacent but clearly distinct regions of activation inside MPFC connected to (i) mentalizing vs nonmentalizing conditions (somewhat caudalsuperior) and (ii) SO vs SI interest (reasonably rostralinferior). These final results generalized from one process for the other, suggesting a new axis of functional organization inside MPFC. Keyword phrases: area 0; attention; medial prefrontal cortex; mentalizing; theory of mindRecent research have pointed to the medial rostral prefrontal cortex (MPFC) as a area on the human brain that plays a crucial role in social cognition (Amodio and Frith, 2006). Functional neuroimaging studies have consistently reported MPFC activation associated to mentalizing PubMed ID:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23153055 (Frith and Frith, 2003), i.e. attributing mental states to other agents. Additional studies have reported MPFC activation linked with reflection upon one’s own feelings (Lane et al 997; Gusnard et al 200) and character traits (Johnson et al 2002; Macrae et al 2004). It has therefore been proposed that this area `is engaged when we attend to our own mental states at the same time as the mental states of others’ (Frith and Frith, 2003, 467). Other studies have suggested a function of MPFC [approximating Brodmann Area (BA) 0] in attentional choice involving stimulusoriented (SO) and stimulusindependent (SI) thought (Burgess et al 2005). For instance, in 1 study (Gilbert et al 2005) MPFC activity was regularly observed in 3 separate tasks while participants attended to visually presented details (`SO phases’), compared with once they performed the same tasks `in their heads’ (`SI phases’). This activity was unrelated to task difficulty plus a subsequent study ruled out an explanation with regards to taskunrelated believed during SO phases because MPFCReceived 9 January 2007; Accepted 9 April 2007 Advance Access publication 7 May 2007 This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust (067) Correspondence should be addressed to Sam J. Gilbert, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, 7 Queen Square, London WCN 3AR, UK. E mail: [email protected] was positively connected to performance (Gilbert et al 2006a, b). Furthermore, prospective variations in `working memory’ demands in between conditions were unable to clarify these outcomes, for the reason that higher MPFC activity was observed within the conditions that, if something, had decreased working memory demands. Constant with these findings, other studies have reported medial rostral PFC activation inside a variety of tasks requiring strong attentional engagement together with the external atmosphere. As an example, Modest et al. (2003) located that activity in this area was related with deployment of visual consideration toward specific regions of space, inside a spatial cueing paradigm (Posner, 980) and Janata et al. (2002) found that activity in medial rostral PFC varied systematically according to the musical essential of a melody in an auditory vigilance job. These Bay 59-3074 web outcomes present a paradox. When studies investigating social cognition have recommended that MPFC activity reflects selfreferential mental processes, research investigating attentional choice have recommended a role for MPFC in attention towards perceptual data. A attainable resolution of this paradox was sug.