Action-Coding Neurons in Primary Motor Cortex: Making Sense of M1 Activity during Action Perception

Lepage, Jean‐François; Lortie, Mélissa; Champoux, François

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.5422-07.2008

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…This notion is supported by a recent study suggesting a prominent role for the motor system in predicting the outcome of observed actions by reading body kinematics (Aglioti, Cesari, Romani, & Urgesi, 2008). Moreover, the hypothesis of a more prominent role of M1 in the process of motor simulation has been suggested before (Alaerts, Heremans, Swinnen, & Wenderoth, 2009;Kilner & Frith, 2007;Lepage, Lortie, & Champoux, 2008;Pineda, 2008) and is in line with the recent discovery of M1 neurons with mirror properties in the monkeys brain (Tkach, Reimer, & Hatsopoulos, 2007).…”

Section: Functional Significance and Potential Mechanisms Underlying supporting

confidence: 71%

Observing how others lift light or heavy objects: Which visual cues mediate the encoding of muscular force in the primary motor cortex?

2010

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a b s t r a c tObservers are able to judge quite accurately the weights lifted by others. Only recently, neuroscience has focused on the role of the motor system to accomplish this task. In this respect, a previous transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) study showed that the muscular force requirements of an observed action are encoded by the primary motor cortex (M1).Overall, three distinct visual sources may provide information on the applied force of an observed lifting action, namely, (i) the perceived kinematics, (ii) the hand contraction state and finally (iii) intrinsic object properties. The principal aim of the present study was to disentangle these three visual sources and to explore their importance in mediating the encoding of muscular force requirements in the observer's motor system. A series of experiments are reported in which TMS was used to measure 'force-related' responses from the hand representation in left M1 while subjects observed distinct action-stimuli.Overall, results indicated that observation-induced activity in M1 reflects the level of observed force when kinematic cues of the lift (exp. 1) or cues on the hand contraction state (exp. 2) are available. Moreover, when kinematic cues and intrinsic object properties provide distinct information on the force requirements of an observed lifting action, results from experiment 3 indicated a strong preference for the use of kinematic features in mapping the force requirements of the observed action. In general, these findings support the hypothesis that the primary motor cortex contributes to action observation by mapping the muscle-related features of observed actions.

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Section: Functional Significance and Potential Mechanisms Underlying supporting

confidence: 71%

Observing how others lift light or heavy objects: Which visual cues mediate the encoding of muscular force in the primary motor cortex?

2010

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“…First, although SI and M1 are anatomically close and highly interconnected, there is physiological and behavioral evidence that the aftereffect of SI and M1 cTBS can dissociate ( Ishikawa et al, 2007 , Mochizuki et al, 2007 , Ragert et al, 2008 , Schabrun et al, 2008 ). Second, although neural activity in M1 may be modulated by action observation ( Nishitani and Hari, 2000 , Fadiga et al, 2005 , Caetano et al, 2007 ; Schütz–Bosbach et al, 2009 ; Gazzola and Keysers, 2009 ; Vigneswaran et al, 2013 ), it is debated whether such activity might play a major role in action perception ( Lepage et al, 2008 , Pineda, 2008 , Bonini, 2016 ). On the one hand, the activity may be a simple downstream consequence of the strong reciprocal cortico-cortical connections, for example with IFC and/or SI ( Geyer et al, 2000 , Rizzolatti and Luppino, 2001 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Primary somatosensory cortex necessary for the perception of weight from other people's action: A continuous theta-burst TMS experiment

et al. 2017

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The presence of a network of areas in the parietal and premotor cortices, which are active both during action execution and observation, suggests that we might understand the actions of other people by activating those motor programs for making similar actions. Although neurophysiological and imaging studies show an involvement of the somatosensory cortex (SI) during action observation and execution, it is unclear whether SI is essential for understanding the somatosensory aspects of observed actions. To address this issue, we used off-line transcranial magnetic continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) just before a weight judgment task. Participants observed the right hand of an actor lifting a box and estimated its relative weight. In counterbalanced sessions, we delivered sham and active cTBS over the hand region of the left SI and, to test anatomical specificity, over the left motor cortex (M1) and the left superior parietal lobule (SPL). Active cTBS over SI, but not over M1 or SPL, impaired task performance relative to sham cTBS. Moreover, active cTBS delivered over SI just before participants were asked to evaluate the weight of a bouncing ball did not alter performance compared to sham cTBS. These findings indicate that SI is critical for extracting somatosensory features (heavy/light) from observed action kinematics and suggest a prominent role of SI in action understanding.

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“…Nevertheless, the cognitive role of mirror-like activity in the brain still remains to be fully understood. Recent findings suggest that mirror-like responses can also be found in primary motor cortex, and that canonical mirror responses can also be found in the hippocampus, SMA and medial frontal regions (Tkach et al, 2007 ; Lepage et al, 2008 ; Mukamel et al, 2010 ). These same regions also display cells with opposite pattern of excitation and inhibition to those observed during action execution or observation, suggesting a role for both integration and differentiation of representations across the brain.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hand specific representations in language comprehension

Moody-Triantis

Humphreys

Gennari

2014

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Theories of embodied cognition argue that language comprehension involves sensory-motor re-enactments of the actions described. However, the degree of specificity of these re-enactments as well as the relationship between action and language remains a matter of debate. Here we investigate these issues by examining how hand-specific information (left or right hand) is recruited in language comprehension and action execution. An fMRI study tested self-reported right-handed participants in two separate tasks that were designed to be as similar as possible to increase sensitivity of the comparison across task: an action execution go/no-go task where participants performed right or left hand actions, and a language task where participants read sentences describing the same left or right handed actions as in the execution task. We found that language-induced activity did not match the hand-specific patterns of activity found for action execution in primary somatosensory and motor cortex, but it overlapped with pre-motor and parietal regions associated with action planning. Within these pre-motor regions, both right hand actions and sentences elicited stronger activity than left hand actions and sentences—a dominant hand effect. Importantly, both dorsal and ventral sections of the left pre-central gyrus were recruited by both tasks, suggesting different action features being recruited. These results suggest that (a) language comprehension elicits motor representations that are hand-specific and akin to multimodal action plans, rather than full action re-enactments; and (b) language comprehension and action execution share schematic hand-specific representations that are richer for the dominant hand, and thus linked to previous motor experience.

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Action-Coding Neurons in Primary Motor Cortex: Making Sense of M1 Activity during Action Perception

Cited by 7 publications

References 7 publications

Observing how others lift light or heavy objects: Which visual cues mediate the encoding of muscular force in the primary motor cortex?

Observing how others lift light or heavy objects: Which visual cues mediate the encoding of muscular force in the primary motor cortex?

Primary somatosensory cortex necessary for the perception of weight from other people's action: A continuous theta-burst TMS experiment

Hand specific representations in language comprehension

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