fMRI Supports the Sensorimotor Theory of Motor Resonance

Abstract

The neural mechanisms mediating the activation of the motor system during action observation, also known as motor resonance, are of major interest to the field of motor control. It has been proposed that motor resonance develops in infants through Hebbian plasticity of pathways connecting sensory and motor regions that fire simultaneously during imitation or self movement observation. A fundamental problem when testing this theory in adults is that most experimental paradigms involve actions that have been overpracticed throughout life. Here, we directly tested the sensorimotor theory of motor resonance by creating new visuomotor representations using abstract stimuli (motor symbols) and identifying the neural networks recruited through fMRI. We predicted that the network recruited during action observation and execution would overlap with that recruited during observation of new motor symbols. Our results indicate that a network consisting of premotor and posterior parietal cortex, the supplementary motor area, the inferior frontal gyrus and cerebellum was activated both by new motor symbols and by direct observation of the corresponding action. This tight spatial overlap underscores the importance of sensorimotor learning for motor resonance and further indicates that the physical characteristics of the perceived stimulus are irrelevant to the evoked response in the observer.

fMRI Evidence of ‘Mirror’ Responses to Geometric Shapes

“…These results are consistent with research showing that activation in mirror areas varies with expertise [23] and training [24], [25], and with previous reports that sensorimotor learning can induce [26], [27], enhance [28], abolish [29], [30], [31], [32], [33] and even reverse [34], [35], [36] ‘mirror effects’, i.e. effects of action observation on overt behaviour, motor evoked potentials (MEPs), and BOLD responses in mirror areas.…”

Baby steps: investigating the development of perceptual–motor couplings in infancy

“…More specifically, our findings are consistent with associative accounts of the development of perceptual–motor couplings (Cook et al ., ; Heyes, ; Keysers & Perret, ), and add to previous studies with adult participants suggesting that visuomotor experience plays a key role in the development of perceptual–motor couplings (e.g. Catmur et al ., , ; Landmann et al ., ). Furthermore, the results of the present study are consistent with the idea that infants need visuomotor experience, rather than just motor experience with an action for the activation of perceptual–motor couplings during action observation.…”

“…Support for this hypothesis has been provided by studies demonstrating that in adults, correlated (i.e. contingent and contiguous) visuomotor experience can enhance (Press, Gillmeister & Heyes, ), abolish (Heyes, Bird, Johnson & Haggard, ), reverse (Catmur, Walsh & Heyes, ; Catmur, Gillmeister, Bird, Liepelt, Brass & Heyes, ), or induce (Landmann, Landi, Grafton & Della‐Maggiore, ; Petroni, Baguear & Della‐Maggiore, ) perceptual–motor couplings. The idea that associative learning is involved in the ontogeny of perceptual–motor couplings is also part of the Hebbian account of mirror neuron development (Keysers & Perrett, ).…”

Sensorimotor learning and the ontogeny of the mirror neuron system

“…Subsequent observation of the cues alone produced greater MEPs in the muscle of the finger with which each cue had been associated. In a further experiment, the same group demonstrated overlap between BOLD response to observed and performed movements, and cues which had been associated with those movements during sensorimotor training [44]. Most recently, Press and colleagues [55] gave participants sensorimotor training in which they learned to associate different shapes with the performance of certain movements.…”