Activations related to “mirror” and “canonical” neurones in the human brain: an fMRI study

Grèzes, Julie; Armony, Jorge L.; Rowe, James B.; Passingham, Richard E.

doi:10.1016/s1053-8119(03)00042-9

Cited by 602 publications

(413 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…These neurons represent actions in the same way when they are observed or self-produced, and are thus an ideal candidate for explaining the link between perception and action in imitation. Brain areas with mirror properties have also been discovered in the human parietal and premotor cortices (e.g., Grèzes et al 2003;Iacoboni et al 1999;Koski et al 2002;Leslie et al 2004). Consistent with the present findings of body part specific mirroring effects, these brain structures are somatotopically organized and represent foot and hand actions in anatomically distinct areas (Buccino et al 2001).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…Imaging studies have confirmed that a similar system is also present in humans (e.g. Grèzes et al 2003;Buccino et al 2001;Iacoboni et al 1999;Koski et al 2002), and this system has been linked to the automatic imitation of actions by imaging and behavioral studies (e.g., Jackson et al 2006;Leslie et al 2004;Wohlschläger and Bekkering 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

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Focusing on body sites: the role of spatial attention in action perception

2006

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Humans use the same representations to code self-produced and observed actions. Neurophysiological evidence for this view comes from the discovery of the so-called mirror neurons in premotor cortex of the macaque monkey. These neurons respond when the monkey performs a particular action but also when it observes the same behavior in another individual. In humans, such direct links between perception and action seem to mediate action priming, where a response is facilitated when a similar action is observed. An issue that has not been fully resolved concerns the role of selective attention in these processes. Action priming appears to be an automatic process in the sense that the observed action can be irrelevant to the observer's task and nevertheless prime similar responses. However, it is not known whether attention has to be oriented to the action for these processes to be engaged. It is demonstrated here that spatial attention indeed has to be oriented to the action related body site for action priming to take place. Furthermore, if attention is oriented to the appropriate body site, there need be no visual cues to action for action priming to emerge.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Focusing on body sites: the role of spatial attention in action perception

2006

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“…A set of voxels corresponding to centroids of local minima was extracted for alpha 282 and beta rhythms from the AND--ERD maps (Insert Supplementary Table S1 here and FIG.S2). 283Expanding existing fMRI literature on activation of cortical areas during OBS and EXE (Buccino et 284 al., 2004;Gazzola and Keysers, 2009;Grezes et al, 2003), we associated alpha and beta rhythms 285 modulation following OBS and EXE to a broad cortical network, compatible withthe putative 286 mirror system, i.e. ventral premotor area (vPM), the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) (FIG.2C and S2) 287 and the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), but also additional cortical regions in both frequency bands.…”

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confidence: 62%

Being an agent or an observer: Different spectral dynamics revealed by MEG

et al. 2014

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14Several neuroimaging studies reported that a common set of regions are recruited during 15 action observation and execution and it has been proposed that the modulation of the µ rhythm, 16 in terms of oscillations in the alpha and beta bands might represent the electrophysiological 17 correlate of the underlying brain mechanisms. However, the specific functional role of these bands 18 within the µ rhythm is still unclear. Here, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to analyze the 19 spectral and temporal properties of the alpha and beta bands in healthy subjects during an action 20 observation and execution task. 21We associated the modulation of the alpha and beta power to a broad action observation 22 network comprising several parieto--frontal areas previously detected in fMRI studies. Of note, we 23 observed a dissociation between alpha and beta bands with a slow--down of beta oscillations 24 ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION -NEUROIMAGE2 compared to alpha during action observation. We hypothesize that this segregation is linked to a 25 different sequence of information processing and we interpret these modulations in terms of 26 internal models (forward and inverse). In fact, these processes showed opposite temporal 27 sequences of occurrence: anterior--posterior during action (both in alpha and beta bands) and 28 roughly posterior--anterior during observation (in the alpha band). The observed differentiation 29 between alpha and beta suggests that these two bands might pursue different functions in the 30 action observation and execution processes. 32Keywords: action observation and execution, alpha and beta rhythms, Event--Related 33Desynchronization (ERD), magnetoencephalography (MEG), internal models 34 35 36 INTRODUCTION 37Several studies report that our sensorimotor system is activated when we observe an 38 action performed by other people. This putative mirror--like activity in humans was found in the 39 precentral gyrus (vPM), the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the inferior parietal lobule (IPL), and 40 regions within the intraparietal sulcus (for a review see Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia, 2010). In addition 41 to this limited number of regions, neuroimaging studies observed a broader action observation 42 network (AON) which seems to be involved during action observation (OBS) and execution (EXE) 43 (Avenanti et al., 2012;Buccino et al., 2004;Gazzola and Keysers, 2009). A proposed theoretical 44 framework postulates that such AON implements forward and inverse internal models (Wolpert 45 and Ghahramani, 2000), which should be engaged during EXE and OBS. The internal models can 46 account both for how we link our actions to sensory consequences and how others' actions match 47 our own actions and sensations (Gazzola and Keysers, 2009;Iacoboni, 2005). It has been proposed 48 that the fronto--parietal AON has a predictive nature and according to this hypothesis, during 49 action observation the inverse and forward models are integrated to achieve a prediction of 50 ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION -NEUROIMA...

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“…Several neurophysiological and neuro-imaging experiments showed that a similar mirror mechanism also exists in the human brain [3,6,7,10]. Ever since its discovery, this mechanism is hypothesised to play an important role in action recognition by matching visual representations of observed actions to motor plans [13].…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Observing shadow motions: Resonant activity within the observer's motor system?

Alaerts

Aggelpoel

Swinnen

et al. 2009

Neuroscience Letters

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a b s t r a c tSeveral studies have demonstrated that the human motor cortex is activated by the mere observation of actions performed by others. In the present study, we explored whether the perception of 'impoverished motion stimuli', such as shadow animations, is sufficient to activate motor areas. To do so, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied over the hand area of the primary motor cortex (M1) while subjects observed shadow animations depicting finger motions. Data showed that resonant motor responses in M1 were only found when a biological effector was recognized from the observed shadow animation. Interestingly, M1 responses were similar for observing shadow or real motions. Therefore, the loss of 'pictorial' movement features in a shadow animation appeared to have no effect on motor resonance in M1. In summary, these findings suggest that the 'recognition' of biological motion from sparse visual input is both necessary and sufficient to recruit motor areas. This supports the hypothesis that the motor system is involved in recognizing the actions performed by others.

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Activations related to “mirror” and “canonical” neurones in the human brain: an fMRI study

Cited by 602 publications

References 73 publications

Focusing on body sites: the role of spatial attention in action perception

Focusing on body sites: the role of spatial attention in action perception

Being an agent or an observer: Different spectral dynamics revealed by MEG

Observing shadow motions: Resonant activity within the observer's motor system?

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