[en] The processing of personal changes across time and the ability to differentiate between representations of present and past selves are crucial for developing a mature sense of identity. In this study, we explored the neural correlates of self-reflection across time using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). College undergraduates were asked to reflect on their own psychological characteristics and those of an intimate other, for both the present time period (i.e. at college) and a past time period (i.e. high school years) that involved significant personal changes. Cortical midline structures (CMS) were commonly recruited by the four reflective tasks (reflecting on the present self, past self, present other and past other), relative to a control condition (making valence judgments). More importantly, however, the degree of activity in CMS also varied significantly according to the target of reflection, with the ventral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex being more recruited when reflecting on the present self than when reflecting on the past self or when reflecting on the other person. These findings suggest that CMS may contribute to differentiate between representations of present and past selves.
Disciplines :
Neurosciences & behavior
Author, co-author :
D'Argembeau, Arnaud ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cognitives > Psychopathologie cognitive
Feyers, Dorothée ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Centre de recherches du cyclotron
Majerus, Steve ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cognitives > Psychopathologie cognitive
Collette, Fabienne ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cognitives > Neuropsychologie - Département des sciences cognitives
Van der Linden, Martial ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cognitives > Psychopathologie cognitive
Maquet, Pierre ; Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège - CHU > Neurologie Sart Tilman
Salmon, Eric ; Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège - CHU > Neurologie Sart Tilman
Language :
English
Title :
Self-reflection across time: cortical midline structures differentiate between present and past selves
Publication date :
2008
Journal title :
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
ISSN :
1749-5016
eISSN :
1749-5024
Publisher :
Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom
Volume :
3
Issue :
3
Pages :
244-252
Peer reviewed :
Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi
Commentary :
The original publication is available at www.oxfordjournals.org
Amodio, D.M., Frith, C.D. (2006). Meeting of minds: The medial frontal cortex and social cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7, 268-77.
Anderson, N.H. (1968). Likableness ratings of 555 personality-trait words. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9, 272-9.
Cabeza, R., St Jacques, P. (2007). Functional neuroimaging of autobiographical memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 219-27.
Conway, M.A. (2005). Memory and the self. Journal of Memory and Language, 53, 594-628.
Conway, M.A., Pleydell-Pearce, C.W. (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review, 107, 261-88.
Craik, F.I.M., Moroz, T.M., Moscovitch, M., et al. (1999). In search of the self: A positron emission tomography study. Psychological Science, 10, 26-34.
D'Argembeau, A., Collette, F., Van der Linden, M., et al. (2005). Self-referential reflective activity and its relationship with rest: A PET study. NeuroImage, 25, 616-24.
D'Argembeau, A., Ruby, P., Collette, F., et al. (2007). Distinct regions of the medial prefrontal cortex are associated with self-referential processing and perspective taking. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 935-44.
Damasio, A.R. (1999). The Feeling of what Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. New York. Harcourt Brace.
Demo, D.H. (1992). The self-concept over time: Research issues and directions. Annual Review of Sociology, 18, 303-26.
Deutsch, F.M., Ruble, D.N., Fleming, A., Brooks-Gunn, J., Stangor, C. (1988). Information-seeking and maternal self-definition during the transition to motherhood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 420-31.
Farb, N.A.S., Segal, Z.V., Mayberg, H., et al. (2007). Attending to the present: Mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2, 313-22.
Fossati, P., Hevenor, S.J., Graham, S.J., et al. (2003). In search of the emotional self an fMRI study using positive and negative emotional words. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160, 1938-45.
Kelley, W.M., Macrae, C.N., Wyland, C.L., Caglar, S., Inati, S., Heatherton, T.F. (2002). Finding the self? An event-related fMRI study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, 785-94.
Kjaer, T.W., Nowak, M., Lou, H.C. (2002). Reflective self-awareness and conscious states: PET evidence for a common midline parietofrontal core. NeuroImage, 17, 1080-6.
Klein, S.B., Rozendal, K., Cosmides, L. (2002). A social-cognitive neuroscience analysis of the self. Social Cognition, 20, 105-35.
Libby, L.K., Eibach, R.P. (2002). Looking back in time: Self-concept change affects visual perspective in autobiographical memory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 167-79.
Lieberman, M.D. (2007). Social cognitive neuroscience: A review of core processes. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 259-89.
Lieberman, M.D., Jarcho, J.M., Satpute, A.B. (2004). Evidence-based and intuition-based self-knowledge: An FMRI study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 421-35.
Lou, H.C., Luber, B., Crupain, M., et al. (2004). Parietal cortex and representation of the mental Self. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 101, 6827-32.
Mason, M.F., Norton, M.I., Van Horn, J.D., Wegner, D.M., Grafton, S.T., Macrae, C.N. (2007). Wandering minds: The default network and stimulus-independent thought. Science, 315, 393-5.
McAdams, D.P. (2001). The psychology of life stories. Review of General Psychology, 5, 100-22.
Mitchell, J.P., Banaji, M.R., Macrae, C.N. (2005). General and specific contributions of the medial prefrontal cortex to knowledge about mental states. NeuroImage, 28, 757-62.
Mitchell, J.P., Macrae, C.N., Banaji, M.R. (2006). Dissociable medial prefrontal contributions to judgments of similar and dissimilar others. Neuron, 50, 655-63.
Moran, J.M., Macrae, C.N., Heatherton, T.F., Wyland, C.L., Kelley, W.M. (2006). Neuroanatomical evidence for distinct cognitive and affective components of self. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 1586-94.
Morin, A. (2006). Levels of consciousness and self-awareness: A comparison and integration of various neurocognitive views. Consciousness and Cognition, 15, 358-71.
Northolf, G., Bermpohl, F. (2004). Cortical midline structures and the self. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 102-7.
Northoff, G., Heinzel, A., de, G.M., Bermpohl, F., Dobrowolny, H., Panksepp, J. (2006). Self-referential processing in our brain-a meta-analysis of imaging studies on the self. NeuroImage, 31, 440-57.
Ochsner, K.N., Beer, I.S., Robertson, E.R., et al. (2005). The neural correlates of direct and reflected self-knowledge. NeuroImage, 28, 797-814.
Pfeifer, J.H., Lieberman, M.D., Dapretto, M. (2007). 'I know you are but what am I?!': Neural bases of self- and social knowledge retrieval in children and adults. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 1323-37.
Pronin, E., Ross, L. (2006). Temporal differences in trait self-ascription: When the self is seen as an other. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 197-209.
Rameson, L., Lieberman, M.D. (2007). Thinking about the self from a social cognitive neuroscience perspective. Psychological Inquiry, 18 117-22.
Ruby, P., Legrand, D. (2007). Neuroimaging the self? In: Haggard, P., Rossetti, Y., Kawato, M., editors. Sensorimotor Foundations of Higher Cognition (Attention and Performance XXII), New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 293-318.
Sakaki, M. (2007). Semantic self-knowledge and episodic self-knowledge: independent or interrelated representations? Memory, 15, 1-16.
Saxe, R., Moran, J.M., Scholz, J., Gabrieli, J. (2006). Overlapping and non-overlapping brain regions for theory of mind and self relfection in individual subjects. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1 229-34.
Schmitz, T.W., Johnson, S.C. (2007). Relevance to self a brief review and framework of neural systems underlying appraisal. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 31, 585-96.
Schmitz, T.W., Kawahara-Baccus, T.N., Johnson, S.C. (2004). Metacognitive evaluation, self-relevance, and the right prefrontal cortex. NeuroImage, 22, 941-7.
Shulman, G.L., Fiez, J.A., Corbetta, M., et al. (1997). Common blood flow changes across visual tasks: II. Decreases in cerebral cortex. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 9, 648-63.
Svoboda, E., McKinnon, M.C., Levine, B. (2006). The functional neuroanatomy of autobiographical memory: A meta-analysis. Neuropsychologia, 44, 2189-208.
Van Boven, L., Loewenstein, G. (2005). Cross-situational predictions. In: Alicke, M.D., Dunning, D.A., Krueger, J.I., editors. The Self in Social Judgment, New York: Psychology Press, pp. 43-64.
Vogeley, K., Kupke, C. (2007). Disturbances of time consciousness from a phenomenological and an neuroscientific perspective. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 33, 157-65.
Wicker, B., Ruby, P., Royet, J.P., Fonlupt, P. (2003). A relation between rest and the self in the brain? Brain Research Reviews, 43 224-30.
Zhu, Y., Zhang, L., Fan, J., Han, S. (2007). Neural basis of cultural influence on self-representation. NeuroImage, 34, 1310-6.
