Abstract: The analysis of neural mechanism provides a novel perspective for researches on values. The machinery of homeostasis and natural modes of biological response including emotions already embody human values. Social cognitive neuroscience tries to find neural and physical evidences for the values, which did some researches about specific values, value orientation and the construction of values, and analyzed the neural activities during valuation and value–based decisions. It found tentatively that the personal values is related to the mode of neural activities, involving numerous brain structures in frontal, parietal and temporal cortex. The future study can focus on the static structure and dynamic process of values, integrate and improve the existing separate neural evidences, to understand the values systematically.

Key words: values, biological antecedent, neural mechanism, prefrontal cortex, fMRI, the structure of values