Anatomical and spatial matching in imitation: Evidence from left and right brain-damaged patients

Mengotti, Paola; Ripamonti, Enrico; Pesavento, Valentina; Rumiati, Raffaella I.

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.06.038

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 66 publications

(136 reference statements)

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“…Among the many papers published dealing with the imitation issue, in healthy adult and children, in patients with brain lesions, psychiatric alterations and also in callosotomized patients, the studies more similar to ours, for protocol uses and/or subjects studied, are those by Goldenberg and coworkers [33], by Lausberg and Cruz [34] and by Mengotti et al [35]. The first paper reports a case of a patient whose CC was severed by an hemorrhagic lesion affecting the truncus and the splenium and causing somatosensory and visual disconnection of the hemispheres.…”

Section: Neural Mechanism: Comparison With Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 64%

Cortical activation during imitative behavior: an fMRI study in callosotomized patients

Pierpaoli¹,

Foschi²,

Fabri³

et al. 2021

J Syst Integr Neurosci

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The present study aims to investigate with functional MRI the neural correlates of imitative perspective-taking. A previous behavioural study on control subjects and callosotomized patients showed that, when subjects are free to reproduce intransitive gesture observed, imitation occurs mainly in mirror mode (60% in control subjects, 66% in patients, p<0.05); on the contrary, when asked to use the same or the opposite limb as the model, controls imitate in anatomical mode (93%, p<0.01), and patients in mirror mode (61%, p<0.05).A subsequent fMRI study performed in control subjects described different cortical activation in the two conditions: left medial frontal gyrus (area 6), left inferior parietal lobule (area 40), opercular part of left inferior frontal gyrus (area 44), and bilateral parietal opercular cortices were activated in Imagine-to-Imitate condition only.Functional MRI was here performed in 6 patients, 5 of whom participated also in previous behavioural study. Blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) responses to gestures observation and imagery were analyzed.Differences in BOLD signals between functional runs performed in Observe and Imagine to imitate conditions were observed, in particular respect to control healthy subjects. Specifically, at variance with previous results in control subjects, in Imagine-to-Imitate condition the cortical activation was inconsistent across patients. This observation is in line with behavioural results, demonstrating a diffuse inability of callosotomized patients to perform anatomical imitation.Present data further suggest that the neural circuitry underpinning the anatomical imitation of intransitive gesture likely requires the cooperation of both hemispheres, and therefore the integrity of the corpus callosum.

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Section: Neural Mechanism: Comparison With Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 64%

Cortical activation during imitative behavior: an fMRI study in callosotomized patients

Pierpaoli¹,

Foschi²,

Fabri³

et al. 2021

J Syst Integr Neurosci

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show abstract

“…Similarly, Biermann-Ruben et al (2008) found that imitation of biological hand movements led to greater right fronto-temporal activation compared to non-biological hand motions. Another group of fMRI studies has compared specular (mirrored-left-hand tester/video, right hand of subject) and anatomical imitation (both tester and subject use the identical hand for imitation, both use their right or left hands) and report greater bilateral or right hemispheric activation during specular imitation compared to anatomical imitation (Koski et al, 2003;Mengotti et al, 2015). In terms of fNIRS literature, few studies have reported greater bilateral activation during synchronous/cooperative actions with another partner (Egetemeir et al, 2011;Liu et al, 2015;Bhat et al, 2017).…”

Section: Greater Right Hemispheric Activation During Ips In Adults Anmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developmental Differences in Cortical Activation During Action Observation, Action Execution and Interpersonal Synchrony: An fNIRS Study

Culotta

Hoffman

et al. 2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Interpersonal synchrony (IPS) is an important everyday behavior influencing social cognitive development; however, few studies have investigated the developmental differences and underlying neural mechanisms of IPS. functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a novel neuroimaging tool that allows the study of cortical activation in the presence of natural movements. Using fNIRS, we compared cortical activation patterns between children and adults during action observation, execution, and IPS. Seventeen school-age children and 15 adults completed a reach to cleanup task while we obtained cortical activation data from bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), superior temporal sulcus (STS), and inferior parietal lobes (IPL). Children showed lower spatial and temporal accuracy during IPS compared to adults (i.e., spatial synchrony scores (Mean ± SE) in children: 2.67 ± 0.08 and adults: 2.85 ± 0.06; temporal synchrony scores (Mean ± SE) in children: 2.74 ± 0.06 and adults: 2.88 ± 0.05). For both groups, the STS regions were more activated during action observation, while the IFG and STS were more activated during action execution and IPS. The IPS condition involved more right-sided activation compared to action execution suggesting that IPS is a higher-order process involving more bilateral cortical activation. In addition, adults showed more left lateralization compared to the children during movement conditions (execution and IPS); which indicated greater inhibition of ipsilateral cortices in the adults compared to children. These findings provide a neuroimaging framework to study imitation and IPS impairments in special populations such as children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

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“…The cognitive processes underlying the two routes have been extensively investigated in several neuropsychological studies with brain-damaged patients with a focus on the neural and cognitive correlates of imitation of familiar and novel actions (Achilles et al, 2016(Achilles et al, , 2019Bartolo et al, 2001;Cubelli et al, 2000;Goldenberg & Hagmann, 1997;Mengotti et al, 2013;Peigneux et al, 2004;Rumiati et al, 2005;Tessari et al, 2007) and support a network in the left hemisphere: lesions of the ventro-dorsal stream (from medial superior temporal area, MT/MST, to the inferior parietal lobule, and then to the ventral premotor cortex) produce impairments to more conceptual aspects of action representation, such as skilled use and pantomime of objects (e.g., Martin, Nitschke, et al, 2016;Tessari et al, 2007Tessari et al, , 2021. On the contrary, the direct route and the processing of new movements have been associated with the dorso-dorsal stream (from V3a to V6 to V6a, to the superior parietal lobule, and then to the dorsal pre-motor areas (Binkofski & Buxbaum, 2013;Hoeren et al, 2014;Mengotti et al, 2015;Tessari et al, 2007Tessari et al, , 2021. At last, the processing of known gestures and the semantic route have been related with regions belonging to both the ventral (from V2 and V4 to the posterior inferotemporal, the central and the anterior inferotemporal areas) and the ventro-dorsal streams (Hoeren et al, 2014;Martin, Nitschke, et al, 2016;Rijntjes et al, 2012;Rumiati et al, 2005;Tessari et al, 2021;Weiller et al, 2009Weiller et al, , 2011, suggesting that the ventral stream might decode the meaning of a movement (and intransitive gestures particularly), and the ventro-dorsal stream the tool-related, meaningful gestures.…”

Section: Mapping the Model's Computational Strategies Into The Multip...mentioning

confidence: 99%

An active inference model of hierarchical action understanding, learning and imitation

Proietti¹,

Pezzulo²,

Tessari³

2021

Preprint

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We advance a novel computational model of the acquisition of a hierarchical action repertoire and its use for observation, understanding and motor control. The model is grounded in a principled framework to understand brain and cognition: active inference. We exemplify the functioning of the model by presenting four simulations of a tennis learner who observes a teacher performing tennis shots and forms hierarchical representations of the observed actions - including both actions that are already in her repertoire and novel actions - and finally imitates them. Our simulations that show that the agent’s oculomotor activity implements an active information sampling strategy that permits inferring the kinematics aspects of the observed movement, which lie at the lowest level of the action hierarchy. In turn, this low-level kinematic inference supports higher-level inferences about deeper aspects of the observed actions, such as their proximal goals and intentions. Finally, the inferred action representations can steer imitative motor responses, but interfere with the execution of different actions. Taken together, our simulations show that the same hierarchical active inference model provides a unified account of action observation, understanding, learning and imitation. Finally, our model provides a computational rationale to explain the neurobiological underpinnings of visuomotor cognition, including the multiple routes for action understanding in the dorsal and ventral streams and mirror mechanisms.

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Anatomical and spatial matching in imitation: Evidence from left and right brain-damaged patients

Cited by 12 publications

References 66 publications

Cortical activation during imitative behavior: an fMRI study in callosotomized patients

Cortical activation during imitative behavior: an fMRI study in callosotomized patients

Developmental Differences in Cortical Activation During Action Observation, Action Execution and Interpersonal Synchrony: An fNIRS Study

An active inference model of hierarchical action understanding, learning and imitation

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