PMID- 17376703
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20070612
LR  - 20070409
IS  - 1053-8119 (Print)
IS  - 1053-8119 (Linking)
VI  - 35
IP  - 3
DP  - 2007 Apr 15
TI  - Neural correlates of true and false belief reasoning.
PG  - 1378-84
AB  - Belief reasoning plays a central role in making inferences about other people's 
      mental states. The ability to reason about false beliefs is considered as a 
      critical test for having a Theory of Mind (ToM). There is some controversy as to 
      whether it is the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) or the temporo-parietal 
      junction (TPJ) that is centrally involved in belief reasoning. According to 
      developmental studies of belief reasoning we conducted an fMRI experiment with a 
      carefully controlled paradigm (Sally Anne scenario). We compared false belief 
      reasoning with true belief reasoning in parallel tasks, using a series of cartoon 
      stories depicting transfer of an object unbeknownst to the protagonist (false 
      belief) or with the protagonist witnessing (true belief). The false belief versus 
      true belief contrast revealed activation of the dorsal part of the anterior 
      cingulate cortex (dACC), the right lateral rostral prefrontal cortex and the 
      right TPJ associated with false belief. We suggest that the activation of the 
      dACC and the lateral PFC might be associated with action monitoring and 
      stimulus-independent cognitive processing whereas the activation of the TPJ might 
      be related to the computation of mental representations that create perspective 
      differences, such as a person's false belief that contrasts with reality and 
      therefore might be centrally involved in the decoupling mechanism. Additionally 
      we found common patterns of activation for true and false belief reasoning, 
      including inferior parietal and precuneus activation, but we found no activation 
      of the MPFC or the TPJ in general belief reasoning.
FAU - Sommer, Monika
AU  - Sommer M
AD  - Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, 
      Germany. monika.sommer@medbo.de <monika.sommer@medbo.de>
FAU - Dohnel, Katrin
AU  - Dohnel K
FAU - Sodian, Beate
AU  - Sodian B
FAU - Meinhardt, Jorg
AU  - Meinhardt J
FAU - Thoermer, Claudia
AU  - Thoermer C
FAU - Hajak, Goran
AU  - Hajak G
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20070212
PL  - United States
TA  - Neuroimage
JT  - NeuroImage
JID - 9215515
SB  - IM
MH  - Adult
MH  - Cerebral Cortex/*physiology
MH  - Cognition/*physiology
MH  - *Concept Formation
MH  - *Culture
MH  - Decision Making/*physiology
MH  - Female
MH  - Humans
MH  - Male
MH  - *Reality Testing
EDAT- 2007/03/23 09:00
MHDA- 2007/06/15 09:00
CRDT- 2007/03/23 09:00
PHST- 2006/08/24 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2006/12/20 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2007/01/14 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2007/03/23 09:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2007/06/15 09:00 [medline]
PHST- 2007/03/23 09:00 [entrez]
AID - S1053-8119(07)00046-8 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.01.042 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Neuroimage. 2007 Apr 15;35(3):1378-84. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.01.042. 
      Epub 2007 Feb 12.