意大利理工学院Gian Domenico Iannetti研究组取得进展。他们的最新研究提出了以自我为中心的近体环境价值图。相关论文于2025年6月2日发表于国际顶尖学术期刊《自然—神经科学》杂志上。

在本研究中，该研究团队以强化学习和人工神经网络为主题，证明以身体部位为中心的场并不仅仅反映刺激配置，而是反映行动价值：它们自然产生于一个基本假设，即代理人在接触环境物体后通常会获得积极或消极的奖励。这一观点成功地再现了实验发现，这些发现是周围个人空间文献的基础。它还表明，周边个人领域提供了构建块，可以在代理附近创建一个世界的模块化模型：一个以自我为中心的价值地图。课题组在他们的人工网络中观察到的新兴模块化有力地支持了这一概念。短期的、近距离的、以自我为中心的海马体地图类似于长期的、远距离的、非中心的海马体地图。这一观点符合来自多个实验的经验数据，提供了可测试的预测，并适应了现有的关于周边个人领域的解释。

据了解，以身体部位为中心的反应场在单个神经元、功能性磁共振成像、脑电图和行为中普遍存在，但它们的起源和作用没有统一的正式解释。

附：英文原文

Title: Egocentric value maps of the near-body environment

Author: Bufacchi, Rory John, Somervail, Richard, Fitzpatrick, Aoife Maria, Murayama, Yusuke, Logothetis, Nikos, Caminiti, Roberto, Iannetti, Gian Domenico

Issue&Volume: 2025-06-02

Abstract: Body-part-centered response fields are pervasive in single neurons, functional magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography and behavior, but there is no unifying formal explanation of their origins and role. In the present study, we used reinforcement learning and artificial neural networks to demonstrate that body-part-centered fields do not simply reflect stimulus configuration, but rather action value: they naturally arise from the basic assumption that agents often experience positive or negative reward after contacting environmental objects. This perspective successfully reproduces experimental findings that are foundational in the peripersonal space literature. It also suggests that peripersonal fields provide building blocks that create a modular model of the world near the agent: an egocentric value map. This concept is strongly supported by the emergent modularity that we observed in our artificial networks. The short-term, close-range, egocentric map is analogous to the long-term, long-range, allocentric hippocampal map. This perspective fits empirical data from multiple experiments, provides testable predictions and accommodates existing explanations of peripersonal fields.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-025-01958-7

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-01958-7