胎儿或能想象未来

　　Could a fetus lying in the womb be planning its future? The question comes from the discovery that brain areas thought to be involved in introspection and other aspects of consciousness are fully formed in newborn babies。

　　Resting State Networks (RSNs)， sometimes called the "dark energy of the brain", are patterns of low-frequency brain activity that are constantly active, even when a person is asleep. Activity in one RSN, the default mode network, drops when someone is engaged in a task, and it may be involved in introspective activities like envisioning the future – what some would call a facet of consciousness。

　　Previous studies suggest that this network only fully develops during childhood, but David Edwards and colleagues at Imperial College London have now shown it is fully formed at birth。

　　The finding came as the team investigated the relationship between RSNs and cognitive functions. They scanned the brains of 70 babies born up to three months early, whose development served as a proxy for fetal development. While rates of progression varied, RSNs for vision, touch, movement and decision-making were largely complete by 40 weeks, as was the default mode network。

　　The fact his team found the default mode network in newborn babies suggests that "either being a fetus is a lot more fun than we remember", as we were able to lie there thinking about the future, or current understanding of what these networks do is mistaken, says Edwards。

　　英国《新科学家》1日报道：“内省”的大脑网络在人出生时就已完全形成

　　躺在子宫里的胎儿会不会真该为自己的将来做打算？产生这个疑问的原因是，有研究发现，与内省和其他意识相关的大脑区域在人一出生时就已经完全形成。

　　静息状态网络，又是也被称为“大脑的暗能量”，指的是一种低频率的大脑活动形式，这种活动形式一直保持着活跃状态，即使在人睡觉时也不例外。一种静息状态网络——即缺省模式网络——的活跃程度会在人投入到某项工作时减弱。它可能与内省活动有关，如想象未来——有人称之为意识的一个层面。

　　以前的研究发现，缺省模式网络在童年时才会发育完全。但帝国理工学院的戴维-爱德华兹及其同事现在证明了该结构在人一出生时就已完全形成。

　　该研究小组是在研究静息状态网络和认知功能的关系时得出这个结论的。他们对70名不超过3个月大的婴儿的大脑进行了扫描，并用婴儿大脑发育水平来代表胎儿的发育水平。

　　爱德华兹说，研究小组在这些婴儿的大脑里发现了缺省模式网络，这表明，“要么胎儿时期的生活比我们所回忆起的有趣很多”，因为在子宫里就能思考未来，要么目前关于这些大脑结构的认知是错误的。