Neural substrates of data-driven scientific discovery:An fMRI study during performance of number series completion task  

作　　者：ZHONG Ning LIANG PeiPeng QIN YuLin LU ShengFu YANG YanHui LI KunCheng 

机构地区：[1]The International WIC Institute, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China [2]Beijing Municipal Lab of Brain Informatics, Beijing 100124, China [3]Department of Life Science and Informatics, Maebashi Institute of Technology, Maebashi 371-0816, Japan [4]Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100053, China [5]Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA

出　　处：《Science China(Life Sciences)》2011年第5期466-473,共8页中国科学（生命科学英文版）

基　　金：supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos.60775039 and 60875075);supported by the Grant-in-aid for Scientific Research (Grant No.18300053) from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science;Support Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology Research,Foundation;the Open Foundation of Key Laboratory of Multimedia and Intelligent Software Technology (Beijing University of Technology) Beijing;the Doctoral Research Fund of Beijing University of Technology (Grant No.00243)

摘　　要：Although much has been known about how humans psychologically perform data-driven scientific discovery,less has been known about its brain mechanism.The number series completion is a typical data-driven scientific discovery task,and has been demonstrated to possess the priming effect,which is attributed to the regularity identification and its subsequent extrapolation.In order to reduce the heterogeneities and make the experimental task proper for a brain imaging study,the number magnitude and arithmetic operation involved in number series completion tasks are further restricted.Behavioral performance in Experiment 1 shows the reliable priming effect for targets as expected.Then,a factorial design (the priming effect:prime vs.target;the period length:simple vs.complex) of event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is used in Experiment 2 to examine the neural basis of data-driven scientific discovery.The fMRI results reveal a double dissociation of the left DLPFC (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and the left APFC (anterior prefrontal cortex) between the simple (period length=1) and the complex (period length=2) number series completion task.The priming effect in the left DLPFC is more significant for the simple task than for the complex task,while the priming effect in the left APFC is more significant for the complex task than for the simple task.The reliable double dissociation may suggest the different roles of the left DLPFC and left APFC in data-driven scientific discovery.The left DLPFC (BA 46) may play a crucial role in rule identification,while the left APFC (BA 10) may be related to mental set maintenance needed during rule identification and extrapolation.Although much has been known about how humans psychologically perform data-driven scientific discovery, less has been known about its brain mechanism. The number series completion is a typical data-driven scientific discovery task, and has been demonstrated to possess the priming effect, which is attributed to the regularity identification and its subsequent extrapolation. In order to reduce the heterogeneities and make the experimental task proper for a brain imaging study, the number magnitude and arithmetic operation involved in number series completion tasks are further restricted. Behavioral performance in Experiment 1 shows the reliable priming effect for targets as expected. Then, a factorial design （the priming effect： prime vs. target; the period length： simple vs. complex） of event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging （fMRI） is used in Experiment 2 to examine the neural basis of data-driven scientific discovery. The fMRI results reveal a double dissociation of the left DLPFC （dorsolateral prefrontal cortex） and the left APFC （anterior prefrontal cortex） between the simple （period length=1） and the complex （period length=2） number series completion task. The priming effect in the left DLPFC is more significant for the simple task than for the complex task, while the priming effect in the left APFC is more significant for the complex task than for the simple task. The reliable double dissociation may suggest the different roles of the left DLPFC and left APFC in data-driven scientific discovery. The left DLPFC （BA 46） may play a crucial role in rule identification, while the left APFC （BA 10） may be related to mental set maintenance needed during rule identification and extrapolation.

关 键 词：dorsolaterai prefrontal cortex （DLPFC） functional MRI data-driven scientific discovery number series completion 

分 类 号：Q426[生物学—神经生物学] G305[生物学—生理学]