小柯机器人

2020年12月23日，《自然》杂志在线发表了美国加州大学洛杉矶分校Nanthia Suthana、Matthias Stangl等研究人员的合作成果。这项研究揭示出自我和他人位置编码的神经机制。

研究人员表示，社会环境中的日常任务要求人类不仅对自己的空间位置，而且对环境中其他人位置的神经表示进行编码。目前，关于自我空间和其他空间神经表示的绝大多数知识都来自对啮齿动物和其他非人类动物的研究。但是，人脑如何体现其他人的位置，以及人类认知的各个方面如何影响这些位置编码机制在很大程度上未知的。

为了解决这些问题，研究人员在进行现实世界的空间导航和观察任务时测试了长期植入电极的志愿者。研究人员报告了内侧颞叶中边界锚定的神经表示，这些表示由一个人以及另一个人的空间位置调节。这些表示取决于一个人的瞬时认知状态，当位置编码具有较高的行为相关性时，这些表示会增强。总之，这些结果为人脑中代表共同环境中自己和他人位置的通用编码机制提供了证据，并为现实环境中空间导航和他人意识的神经机制提供了新的思路。

附：英文原文

Title: Boundary-anchored neural mechanisms of location-encoding for self and others

Author: Matthias Stangl, Uros Topalovic, Cory S. Inman, Sonja Hiller, Diane Villaroman, Zahra M. Aghajan, Leonardo Christov-Moore, Nicholas R. Hasulak, Vikram R. Rao, Casey H. Halpern, Dawn Eliashiv, Itzhak Fried, Nanthia Suthana

Issue&Volume: 2020-12-23

Abstract: Everyday tasks in social settings require humans to encode neural representations of not only their own spatial location, but also the location of other individuals within an environment. At present, the vast majority of what is known about neural representations of space for self and others stems from research in rodents and other non-human animals1,2,3. However, it is largely unknown how the human brain represents the location of others, and how aspects of human cognition may affect these location-encoding mechanisms. To address these questions, we examined individuals with chronically implanted electrodes while they carried out real-world spatial navigation and observation tasks. We report boundary-anchored neural representations in the medial temporal lobe that are modulated by one’s own as well as another individual’s spatial location. These representations depend on one’s momentary cognitive state, and are strengthened when encoding of location is of higher behavioural relevance. Together, these results provide evidence for a common encoding mechanism in the human brain that represents the location of oneself and others in shared environments, and shed new light on the neural mechanisms that underlie spatial navigation and awareness of others in real-world scenarios.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03073-y

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03073-y

Nature：《自然》，创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：69.504
官方网址：http://www.nature.com/
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