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Action representation and the inferior parietal lobule
... Outside of premotor cortex, neurons activated during the observation of others' actions 23 have been found in the macaque superior temporal sulcus (STS) 14 . One hypothesis is that the STS 24 provides the essential visual input to the MNS in order to map others' actions in our own 25 repertoire 15 , but that communication between this temporal region and the frontal areas can only 26 take place through connections with the rostral part of the inferior parietal lobule 16,17 and the 27 anterior intraparietal area (AIP) 15 . ...
... The homologies between the MNS of the three species continue with activations 7in the dorsal area 6 (6DR and 6DC, bilaterally), mirroring what has been observed by 8 electrophysiological21,23 and fMRI studies 34 in macaques and humans, respectively. 9Outside the premotor and prefrontal cortex, one of the main MNS regions is the STS, in 10 both humans34,35 and macaques14,15 . In the present study, we also found a posterior region in the 11 fundus of the temporal sulcus (FST) in the New World marmoset that was more active for the 12 observation of goal-directed versus non-goal-directed movements, consistent with the findings of 13 a macaque fMRI study that used a similar experimental paradigm15 . ...
Thirty years have passed since the first description of neurons in Old World macaque monkeys that fire both during the execution and observation of goal-directed actions. Since then, these so-called mirror neurons have been shown to play important roles in understanding the actions of others, learning by imitation, and social cognition in macaques and humans. In contrast to Old World primates, an action-observation network has not yet been identified in New World primates. Here we used ultra-high field fMRI at 9.4T in awake common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) while they watched videos depicting the upper-limb of marmosets performing goal-directed (grasping food) or non-goal-directed actions. We found that the observation of goal-directed actions, compared to non-goal directed ones, activated a frontotemporoparietal network, including areas 6 and 45 in premotor and prefrontal cortices, and areas PGa-IPa, FST, and the TE complex in temporoparietal regions. These results demonstrate the existence of an evolutionarily conserved action observation network in primates that likely predates the separation of Old and New World monkeys.
... Moreover, our results are in agreement with EMG findings in children with ASD that suggested an impairment in action-chaining mechanism (Cattaneo et al., 2007). This mechanism (Fogassi et al., 2005) has been hypothesised to allow the observer to infer the agent's intention (Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 2002) and emotions (Jezzini et al., 2015). Consistently, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies in humans have provided causal evidence for the specific involvement of parietal areas in processing emotional BM (Engelen et al. 2015(Engelen et al. , 2018Mazzoni et al. 2017). ...
... Interestingly, a number of neuroimaging studies in ASD have showed structural, functional, and connectivity atypicalities in MNS areas during BM perception (Alaerts, Swinnen, & Wenderoth, 2017;Libero et al., 2014;McKay et al., 2012), suggesting that alteration of the MNS areas could explain the difficulty found in BM processing in ASD. In TD individuals, the internal mapping of the observed movement into the observer's motor system occurs automatically and allows a very rapid recognition of the observed BM (Gallese et al. 2002). For instance, using MEG Meeren et al. (2016) showed a response in right posterior parietal cortex to fearful body postures as early as 80 ms after stimulus onset. ...
In this study, we investigated whether the difficulties in body motion (BM) perception may led to deficit in emotion recognition in Autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To this aim, individuals with high-functioning ASD were asked to recognise fearful, happy, and neutral BM depicted as static images or dynamic point-light and full-light displays. Results showed slower response times in participants with ASD only in recognising dynamic stimuli, but no group differences in accuracy. This suggests that i) a deficit in action chaining mechanism in ASD may prevent the recognition of dynamic BM automatically and rapidly, ii) individuals with ASD and high cognitive resources can develop alternative—but equally successful—strategies to recognise emotional body expressions. Implications for treatment are discussed
... Neurons in this area display mostly hand-, but also mouth-or hand-and mouth-related activity (Gardner et al., 2007;Hyvärinen, 1981;Rozzi et al., 2008;Yokochi et al., 2003). PFG neurons also display somatosensory and/or visual responses confined to the peripersonal space and visual responses to object presentation (Gallese et al., 2002;Hyvärinen, 1981;Rozzi et al., 2008). Most hand-related neurons activate during the execution of object-oriented hand actions (Gardner et al., 2007;Rozzi et al., 2008), often showing selectivity for the grip type . ...
... Furthermore, the finding that PFG grasping neurons can integrate information on both grip type and action goal suggests that this IPL area encodes information about both "how" and "why" each motor act has to be done . Finally, as many PFG neurons also display mirror properties (Bonini et al., 2010;Gallese et al., 2002;Rozzi et al., 2008), this area has been considered the main parietal node of the "mirror system" . Interestingly, there are PFG mirror neurons active during the observation of grasping when embedded within a sequential action with a specific goal, thus suggesting a role in coding motor intention of others (Bonini et al., 2010;. ...
In primates, neural mechanisms for controlling skilled hand actions primarily rely on sensorimotor transformations. These transformations are mediated by circuits linking specific inferior parietal with ventral premotor areas in which sensory coding of objects' features automatically trigger appropriate hand motor programs. Recently, connectional studies in macaques showed that these parietal and premotor areas are nodes of a large-scale cortical network, designated as “lateral grasping network,” including specific temporal and prefrontal sectors involved in object recognition and executive functions, respectively. These data extend grasping models so far proposed in providing a possible substrate for interfacing perceptual, cognitive, and hand-related sensorimotor processes for controlling hand actions based on object identity, goals, and memory-based or contextual information and for the contribution of motor signals to cognitive motor functions. Human studies provided evidence for a possible counterpart of the macaque lateral grasping network, suggesting that in primate evolution the neural mechanisms for controlling hand actions described in the macaque have been retained and exploited for the emergence of human-specific motor and cognitive motor capacities.
... Moreover, the selectivity of the movement similarity effect to mental state animations suggests that our movement similarity measure (i.e., jerk difference) may be indexing mapping at higher levels of the "motor hierarchy" [46], reflecting integration of the motor action with its underlying intention (i.e., mentalising), rather than mapping of short-term action goals (action understanding). Within the putative mirror neuron network, the inferior parietal lobule [73,74] may be a candidate node for these higher-order action representation processes, as this region is causally implicated in decoding intentions from action kinematics [75] and recruited during animations tasks [76] (i.e., responds to kinematics without the presence of body parts). Intriguingly, we observed that under haloperidol, individuals showed the same movement similarity effect on mentalising when movement similarity was calculated based on their movements produced in the placebo condition, but not when the measure was based on movements from the haloperidol condition. ...
Difficulties in reasoning about others’ mental states (i.e., mentalising/Theory of Mind) are highly prevalent among disorders featuring dopamine dysfunctions (e.g., Parkinson’s disease) and significantly affect individuals’ quality of life. However, due to multiple confounding factors inherent to existing patient studies, currently little is known about whether these sociocognitive symptoms originate from aberrant dopamine signalling or from psychosocial changes unrelated to dopamine. The present study, therefore, investigated the role of dopamine in modulating mentalising in a sample of healthy volunteers. We used a double-blind, placebo-controlled procedure to test the effect of the D2/D3 antagonist haloperidol on mental state attribution, using an adaptation of the Heider and Simmel (1944) animations task. On 2 separate days, once after receiving 2.5 mg haloperidol and once after receiving placebo, 33 healthy adult participants viewed and labelled short videos of 2 triangles depicting mental state (involving mentalistic interaction wherein 1 triangle intends to cause or act upon a particular mental state in the other, e.g., surprising) and non-mental state (involving reciprocal interaction without the intention to cause/act upon the other triangle’s mental state, e.g., following) interactions. Using Bayesian mixed effects models, we observed that haloperidol decreased accuracy in labelling both mental and non-mental state animations. Our secondary analyses suggest that dopamine modulates inference from mental and non-mental state animations via independent mechanisms, pointing towards 2 putative pathways underlying the dopaminergic modulation of mental state attribution: action representation and a shared mechanism supporting mentalising and emotion recognition. We conclude that dopaminergic pathways impact Theory of Mind, at least indirectly. Our results have implications for the neurochemical basis of sociocognitive difficulties in patients with dopamine dysfunctions and generate new hypotheses about the specific dopamine-mediated mechanisms underlying social cognition.
... Hace diez años, un grupo de neurocientíficos de la Universidad de Parma dirigidos por Giacomo Rizzolatti descubrió y describió una población de neuronas en el área premotora F5 del cerebro de mono que se activaban no sólo cuando el mono realizaba ciertas acciones con la mano (por ejemplo agarrar un objeto), sino también cuando observaba las mismas acciones realizadas por otro individuo (mono u hombre). Estas neuronas fueron llamadas "neuronas espejo" Gallese et al., 1996;véase también Gallese, 2000véase también Gallese, , 2001Gallese et al., 2002;Rizzolatti, Fogassi y Gallese, 2000. La acción que, una vez observada, activaba las neuronas espejo del observador tenía que suponer la interacción entre la mano de alguien que actuaba y un objeto. ...
... Neurozobrazovací studie nasvědčují, že sense of agency je spojené s parieto-frontálním okruhem . Zejména oblast identifikovaná jako rIPL nebo TPJ 1 bývá spojována s reprezentací motorických akcí Gallese et al., 2002) a s komparací motorického plánu vůči výsledkům akce (Gallese, 2005). Pozitivní sense of agency byl spojen se zvýšeným gamma coupling mezi rIPL a preSMA 2 (Ritterband-Rosenbaum, Nielsen, et 1 TPJ -temporo-parietální junkce; rIPL -dolní parietální lalok, pravostranný. ...
Sense of agency je pocit, že jsem tím, kdo způsobil danou akci. V této studii jsme zkoumali efektnízkofrekvenční (1 Hz) a vysokofrekvenční (10 Hz, 20Hz) rTMS stimulace pravého dolního parietálního laloku na sense of agency a potenciální roli gamma oscilací v tomto procesu. Participanti (N=16) podstoupili rTMS stimulaci, po které následoval úkolna sense of agency zahrnující pohybování kurzorem a externí manipulaci zpětné vazby. Aplikace 20 Hz rTMS stimulace vedla ke sníženípřesnosti rozpoznání vlastních a cizích akcí. Tento efekt byl způsoben poklesem kapacity rozpoznat externí manipulaci pohybu.
... Las neuronas reflejo se encontraron inicialmente en el área F5, pero investigaciones posteriores encontraron este tipo de neuronas en la parte rostral del lóbulo parietal inferior. "Estas neuronas espejo de áreas parietales tienen propiedades similares a las de F5" (Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 2002). Se llegó a esta conclusión debido a que estas áreas son las que presentan mayor activación durante el proceso de observación y realización de acciones. ...
Al observar diariamente las diferentes conductas que el ser humano puede incursionar. De igual manera se analiza las conductas de otros individuos a los cuales les asignamos un porqué, esto ocurre con las diferentes situaciones que se dan en un ambiente artístico, laboral, escolar, etc, o en aquel que enfoca la atención en el cual se tiene deseos de experimentar, lo que conlleva a que en las diferentes relaciones haya mucho más que indagación. Algunos expertos coinciden que así como el ser humano observa o explora las formas de comportamiento de otros individuaos, de igual manera imita estas, conocidas como Neuronas reflejo o conocida como espejo. Determinando un aspecto especial o diríamos esencial, en un buen uso de estas en los procesos terapéuticos. En el presente trabajo de revisión bibliográfico, se analizó este concepto y su uso, determinando excelentes resultados en la ejecución, tanto en la vida diaria del infante en hogar, así como las diferentes inmediaciones en donde se desenvuelve, a medida que se desarrolla, como es el caso del entorno educativo, el infante tiende a copiar los formatos conductuales y de comportamiento.
... The first set is related to features and functions of the brain areas included in the AON. The inferior parietal cortex and the ventral premotor cortex contain a high proportion of visual neurons, as well as many visuomotor and visuo-somatosensory neurons [5,6,42,120]. Such neurons reflect functions in the fast, accurate, and flexible visual guidance of actions in unique environments [121] and in the localization of possibly relevant individuals, movements, or objects in the visual field, which enables adaptive motor responses [43,45,116,117]. ...
I have reviewed studies on neural responses to pictured actions in the action observation network (AON) and the cognitive functions of these responses. Based on this review, I have analyzed the specific representational characteristics of action photographs. There has been consensus that AON responses provide viewers with knowledge of observed or pictured actions, but there has been controversy about the properties of this knowledge. Is this knowledge causally provided by AON activities or is it dependent on conceptual processing? What elements of actions does it refer to, and how generalized or specific is it? The answers to these questions have come from studies that used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to stimulate motor or somatosensory cortices. In conjunction with electromyography (EMG), TMS allows researchers to examine changes of the excitability in the corticospinal tract and muscles of people viewing pictured actions. The timing of these changes and muscle specificity enable inferences to be drawn about the cognitive products of processing pictured actions in the AON. Based on a review of studies using TMS and other neuroscience methods, I have proposed a novel hypothetical account that describes the characteristics of action photographs that make them effective cues to social perception. This account includes predictions that can be tested experimentally.
... Las neuronas reflejo se encontraron inicialmente en el área F5, pero investigaciones posteriores encontraron este tipo de neuronas en la parte rostral del lóbulo parietal inferior. "Estas neuronas espejo de áreas parietales tienen propiedades similares a las de F5" (Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 2002). Se llegó a esta conclusión debido a que estas áreas son las que presentan mayor activación durante el proceso de observación y realización de acciones. ...
La humanidad se encuentra en tiempos convulsivos, que han re�ordenado la concepción del mundo e introducen nuevos indicadores
de referencia, que según Kuhn (1971), permiten captar oportunidades
y delinear propósitos, es decir los cambios nos confrontan y activan,
para encontrar la normalidad deseada
Esto compromete la dinámica de generación de conocimiento y los
cambios que la impactan actualmente, dejando la progresividad de lo
planificado, que se ve afectado por situaciones aceleradas, confusas y
devastadoras, dejado aprendizaje, retos y también oportunidades.
De tal manera que, la sostenibilidad de la vida y el compromiso
del hombre por su subsistencia y la del otro, están comprometiendo
las relaciones proximales y distales propias de la generación y docu�mentación del conocimiento, lo cual hace diferenciable e imperativo, el
manejo inteligente del flujo de energía que se genera, desde lo propio
y lo organizacional, encontrando en la ciencia abierta cuatro aspectos
que destacar: el manejo de las plataformas digitales, la generación de
confianza, la construcción de espacios de concertación entre pares y
cimentación de nuevas oportunidades, a través de un ciclo abierto, con
retroacción: incorporan, recibir, retornar, actuar, cooperar y nutrir,
para ser sostenible y útil el conocimiento en tiempos de incertidumbre.
Es evidente, que las plataformas digitales en las universidades se
han consolidado, como herramienta primordial de comunicación, or�ganización, visibilidad y accesibilidad del conocimiento, a través de las
cuales, el investigador con su institucionalidad y experticia, logra pro�yectarse, informar y difundir información a través de congresos o cual�quier otra modalidad de compartición del conocimiento. Esto inscribe
el presente texto en una concepción socio digital, que permite recopilar
y documentar el conocimiento científico, a través de experiencias aca�démicas e investigaciones, que sirven de referente significativo, para
aprender a vivir en un mundo diferente, donde tal diferencia delinea
criterios para construir el regreso a la normalidad deseada
... Finally, overlapped clusters of activation referring to the two muscles can be observed in the right caudate nucleus, left putamen, and the right inferior parietal lobule. While the involvement of the inferior parietal lobule in controlling motor actions is still under debate, with few studies that propose its involvement in coding different motor actions 57 , the role of putamen and caudate nuclei is more established 52,58 . Both subcortical regions have been observed to be involved in postural maintenance and sensory-motor integration 59 and in controlling movement initiation 52 . ...
Knowledge on the organization of motor function in the reticulospinal tract (RST) is limited by the lack of methods for measuring RST function in humans. Behavioral studies suggest the involvement of the RST in long latency responses (LLRs). LLRs, elicited by precisely controlled perturbations, can therefore act as a viable paradigm to measure motor-related RST activity using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Here we present StretchfMRI, a novel technique developed to study RST function associated with LLRs. StretchfMRI combines robotic perturbations with electromyography and fMRI to simultaneously quantify muscular and neural activity during stretch-evoked LLRs without loss of reliability. Using StretchfMRI, we established the muscle-specific organization of LLR activity in the brainstem. The observed organization is partially consistent with animal models, with activity primarily in the ipsilateral medulla for flexors and in the contralateral pons for extensors, but also includes other areas, such as the midbrain and bilateral pontomedullary contributions.
... Las neuronas reflejo se encontraron inicialmente en el área F5, pero investigaciones posteriores encontraron este tipo de neuronas en la parte rostral del lóbulo parietal inferior. "Estas neuronas espejo de áreas parietales tienen propiedades similares a las de F5" (Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 2002). Se llegó a esta conclusión debido a que estas áreas son las que presentan mayor activación durante el proceso de observación y realización de acciones. ...
Aborda el tema sobre los procesos de construcción del conocimiento en la comunidad de aprendizaje que conforman los estudiantes tesistas con sus orientadores o tutores.
... Las neuronas reflejo se encontraron inicialmente en el área F5, pero investigaciones posteriores encontraron este tipo de neuronas en la parte rostral del lóbulo parietal inferior. "Estas neuronas espejo de áreas parietales tienen propiedades similares a las de F5" (Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 2002). Se llegó a esta conclusión debido a que estas áreas son las que presentan mayor activación durante el proceso de observación y realización de acciones. ...
... Las neuronas reflejo se encontraron inicialmente en el área F5, pero investigaciones posteriores encontraron este tipo de neuronas en la parte rostral del lóbulo parietal inferior. "Estas neuronas espejo de áreas parietales tienen propiedades similares a las de F5" (Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 2002). Se llegó a esta conclusión debido a que estas áreas son las que presentan mayor activación durante el proceso de observación y realización de acciones. ...
Se trata de un artículo publicado en un libro digital Intitulado Aprender a vivir para un mundo diferente. Se hace abordaje sobre un modelo didáctico centrado en el autoconocimiento que privilegie la metacognición en orden al desarrollo de habilidades cognitivas para aprender sobre las TIC y con las TIC
... Moreover, a large body of data shows that the brain systems for language and action are heavily interwoven within each other. Hearing a word may automatically activate the motor system (Fadiga et al, 2002), and performing actions may help us to understand words (Cartmill, et al.,2012). In the same vein, Tettamanti et al. (2005) demonstrated that listening to sentences describing actions performed with the mouth, the hand, or the leg activated a left frontoparieto-temporal network that included the pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area), the intraparietal sulcus, and the posterior middle temporal gyrus, in a somatotopic manner. ...
The concept of “embodied cognition” considers that the classical Perception-Cognition-Action architecture proposing a sequential flow of processing with clean cuts between all modules is not appropriate to understand the behavioral effect of neurodegenerative disorders and to find innovative therapeutic solutions. In the last decades, the discovery of the mirror neurons (MN) has given a biological substrate to this theoretical perspective: the MN are now thought linking together knowledge about actions and perceptions not only to integrate perception in action planning and execution but also as a neural mechanism supporting a wide range of cognitive functions, e.g. empathy and language. At the same time, it is now clear that in each neurodegenerative disease both cognitive and motor symptoms are represented along a continuum. In the current demographic context, neurodegenerative diseases linked to aging have become a very important social issue. Alzheimer Disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, is a neurodegenerative disease strictly linked to aging. As actually there is no cure, several studies are focusing on prevention. A category which now represents a preferential target of intervention is Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), considered as an intermediate stage between normal aging and AD. Even if AD and MCI have been characterized as “cognitive” diseases until now, a link between motor function and the risk of developing AD has been recognized.The main purpose of this research is to investigate the integrity of the MN network in AD, MCI and normal aging. Characterizing the functioning of the MN network in neurodegenerative diseases would be useful to better understand functional mechanisms and their clinical manifestations. It would also allow to capitalize on these kinds of neurons in the rehabilitation of motor and cognitive symptoms.The thesis consists of two parts: the first part includes an extensive bibliographic research intended to describe the scientific frame which justifies such a research.We first reviewed the evidence about the existence of a MN system in monkeys and humans, and its multiple possible roles in humans.We then briefly reviewed the clinical picture of the main neurodegenerative disorders, showing how cognitive and motor symptoms intersect in all of them.Next, we detailed the results of literature searching on neurodegenerative diseases, MN, and embodied cognition, commenting them at the light of this hypothesis.The second part of the thesis describe the experimental procedure which has been performed to evaluate the integrity of the MN network in normal elderly and people with AD and MCI, and its results.Three matched groups of 16 subjects each (normal elderly-NE, amnesic MCI with hippocampal atrophy and AD) were evaluated with a neuropsychological battery centered on functions thought to be linked to the MN system, and a fMRI task specifically created to test MN: that comprised of an observation run, where subjects were shown videos of a right hand grasping different objects, and of a motor run, where subjects observed visual pictures of objects oriented to be grasped with the right hand, and made the corresponding gesture.In NE subjects, the conjunction analysis (comparing fMRI activation during observation and execution), indicated the activation of a bilateral fronto-parietal network in “classical” MN areas, and of the superior temporal gyrus (STG), an area thought to provide the cortical visual input to the MN. The MCI group showed the activation of areas belonging to the same network, however, parietal areas were activated to a lesser extent and the STG was not activated, while the opposite was true for the right Broca’s area. We did not observe any activation of the fronto-parietal network in AD participants (...).
... Finally, overlapped clusters of activation referring to the two muscles can be observed in the right caudate nucleus, left putamen, and the right inferior parietal lobule. While the involvement of the inferior parietal lobule in controlling motor actions is still under debate, with few studies that propose its involvement in coding different motor actions 36,37 , the role of putamen and caudate nuclei is much more established 26,38,39 . Both subcortical regions have been observed to be involved in postural maintenance and sensory-motor integration 40 and in controlling movement initiation 26 . ...
Knowledge on the organization of motor function in the reticulospinal tract (RST) is limited by the lack of methods for measuring RST function in humans. Behavioral studies suggest the involvement of the RST in long latency responses (LLRs). LLRs, elicited by precisely controlled perturbations, can therefore act as a viable paradigm to measure motor-related RST activity using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).
Here we present StretchfMRI, a novel technique developed to study RST function associated with LLRs. StretchfMRI combines robotic perturbations with electromyography and fMRI to simultaneously quantify muscular and neural activity during stretch-evoked LLRs without loss of reliability. Using StretchfMRI, we established the muscle-specific organization of LLR activity in the brainstem. The observed organization is partially consistent with animal models, with activity primarily in the ipsilateral medulla for flexors and in the contralateral pons for extensors, but also include other areas, such as the midbrain and bilateral pontomedullary contributions.
... Mirror neurons were first discovered in area F5 of the ventrolateral premotor cortex (Di Pellegrino et al. 1992;Gallese et al. 1996;Rizzolatti et al. 1996;Sinigaglia 2010, 2016). Mirror neurons were also found in the rostral part of the inferior parietal lobule, known as area 7b or PF (Fogassi et al. 1998;Gallese et al. 2002;Rizzolatti and Craighero 2004). Other monkey frontal areas were also found to respond to actions performed by others (Nelissen et al. 2005). ...
The cerebral cortex can be divided into a large isocortex or neocortex, a smaller allocortex (the hippocampal formation and the olfactory cortex) and a transition zone (the mesocortex) in between. The heterogeneous allocortex and the mesocortex have been discussed in ► Chap. 14. The various parts of the neocortex show large variations in the development of their constituent layers. The cortical areas that receive the primary sensory pathways via the thalamus form the granular cortex, in which layers II and IV are especially well developed. In the motor cortex, these layers are poorly developed (the agranular cortex), whereas the pyramidal layers III and V are well developed. Based on such differences in cytoarchitecture, Brodmann, von Economo and Koskinas and Sarkissov et al. published their brain maps (► Sect. 15.2). Myeloarchitectonic maps were prepared by the Vogts and more recently by Nieuwenhuys et al. Nowadays, atlases combine data describing multiple aspects of brain structure from different subjects. The various cortical lobes are discussed in ► Sect. 15.3.
... The inferior premotor area responds also during observation of objectdirected movements made by humans, and also during their execution (lacoboni et al., 1999;Koski, lacoboni, Dubeau, Woods, & Mazziotta, 2003). In monkeys, neurons that respond during observation of reaching and grasping actions have been found in the superior temporal sulcus (Jellema, Baker, Wicker, & Perrett, 2000), and neurons responding both during observation and execution of object-directed action (Mirror Neurons) have been described in the ventral premotor (di Pellegrino, Fadiga, Fogassi, Gallese, & Rizzolatti, 1992;Umilta et al., 2001) and parietal cortices (Fogassi, Gallese, Fadiga, & Rizzolatti, 1998;Gallese, Fogassi, Fadiga, & Rizzolatti, 2002). Recent data suggest that the Mirror Neurons respond differently to object-directed and non-object-directed actions (i.e. a mimed movement) on the basis of the movement kinematics rather than the object presence (Umilta et al., 2001, see Figure Intro.9). ...
Mentalising or Theory-of-Mind (ToM) is defined as the attribution of mental states to other agents. While this capacity develops progressively in children, an important step is reached by passing the false-belief task, normally at about four years of age. Measures of brain activity during performance of a wide range of tasks requiring ToM have repeatedly demonstrated involvement of a particular set of brain regions. But how each of these regions contributes to this process is not yet clear. Based on previous data and a model of the cognitive components necessary for ToM, I performed three experiments using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging in healthy volunteers to clarify the involvement of brain regions in important components of the ToM capacity. Two different cognitive processes were studied: 1) the identification of potential living entities in the environment and 2) the observation of human actions. In both types of processes, one variable appears to play an important role according to the literature; the presence of goals in the observed actions. This variable was therefore manipulated in all experiments. When healthy subjects watched two disks, moving in a seemingly animate way, interact with each other, activity in a region known to respond to biological motion (the posterior part of the superior temporal sulcus area, or pSTS) increased parametrically with the presence of a goal in the behaviour of the disks, as did attribution of animacy. In a second experiment using moving disks, the pSTS showed greater activation when a chasing disk appeared to attribute goals to the target rather than simply following it. The third experiment showed a role of the pSTS in the analysis of human movement kinematics during categorisation of actions depending on goal-directedness. The role of goals in the neural basis of mentalising is discussed.
... reaching for a piece of food) but also when they observe others performing the same or a similar action. [1][2][3] This discovery was an important milestone in neuroscience because it showed that action perception and action execution were intrinsically linked from the neuronal level. Later research in humans with non-invasive neuroimaging and neurophysiological techniques showed evidence of the existence of a frontoparietal cortical network with the same property, which has been called the Mirror Neuron System (MNS). 4 The essential property of mirror neurons (i.e. ...
Introduction
Action observation neurorehabilitation systems are usually based on the observation of a virtual limb performing different kinds of actions. In this way, the activity in the frontoparietal Mirror Neuron System is enhanced, which can be helpful to rehabilitate stroke patients. However, the presence of limbs in such systems might not be necessary to produce mirror activity, for example, frontoparietal mirror activity can be produced just by the observation of virtual tool movements. The objective of this work was to explore to what point the presence of a virtual limb impacts the Mirror Neuron System activity in neurorehabilitation systems.
Methods
The study was conducted by using an action observation neurorehabilitation task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment with healthy volunteers and comparing two action observation conditions that: 1 – included or 2 – did not include a virtual limb.
Results
It was found that activity in the Mirror Neuron System was similar during both conditions (i.e. virtual limb present or absent).
Conclusions
These results open up the possibility of using new tasks that do not include virtual limbs in action observation neurorehabilitation environments, which can give more freedom to develop such systems.
... The classical mirror neuron system consists of the premotor area F5 in monkeys (di Pellegrino, 1992;Gallese et al., 1996) which corresponds to the ventral premotor cortex (PMv) in humans (Petrides, 2005), and the parietal area PF/PFG in monkeys (Gallese et al., 2002;Fogassi et al., 2005) which corresponds to BA40 of the inferior parietal lobe (IPL) in humans (Buccino et al., 2001). However, it is not clear why the primary motor (Tkach et al., 2007;Dushanova and Donoghue, 2010;Vigneswaran et al., 2013) and the dorsal premotor cortex of the monkey (Cisek and Kalaska, 2004;Tkach et al., 2007) as well as the medial temporal lobe of humans (Mukamel et al., 2010), which also contain neurons with mirror-properties, are not considered parts of the mirror neuron system (Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia, 2010;Rizzolatti et al., 2014;Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia, 2016). ...
Motor cognition is related to the planning and generation of actions as well as to the recognition and imagination of motor acts. Recently, there is evidence that the motor system participates not only in overt actions but also in mental processes supporting covert actions. Within this framework, we have investigated the cortical areas engaged in execution, observation, and imagination of the same action, by the use of the high resolution quantitative 14C-deoxyglucose method in monkeys and by fMRI in humans, throughout the entire primate brain. Our data demonstrated that observing or imagining an action excites virtually the same sensory-motor cortical network which supports execution of that same action. In general agreement with the results of five relevant meta-analyses that we discuss extensively, our results imply mental practice, i.e. internal rehearsal of the action including movements and their sensory effects. We suggest that we actively perceive and imagine actions by selecting and running off-line restored sensory-motor memories, by mentally simulating the actions. We provide empirical evidence that mental simulation of actions underlies motor cognition, and conceptual representations are grounded in sensory-motor codes. Motor cognition may, therefore, be embodied and modal. Finally, we consider questions regarding agency attribution and the possible causal or epiphenomenal role the involved sensory-motor network could play in motor cognition.
... The response pattern of these neurons resembles that of mirror neurons (MirNs): they fire both when an animal performs a transitive action, and when the same animal observes another agent performing the same or a similar action with a biological effector (di Pellegrino et al. 1992;Gallese et al. 1996;Rizzolatti et al. 1996). MirNs have been found in area F5 of the ventral premotor cortex (di Pellegrino et al. 1992;Gallese et al. 1996;Rizzolatti et al. 1996;Kraskov et al. 2009;Bonini et al. 2014;Papadourakis and Raos 2017), areas PF/ PFG, AIP of the inferior parietal lobule (Gallese et al. 2002;Fogassi et al. 2005;Pani et al. 2014;Maeda et al. 2015), as well as from the primary motor cortex (Vigneswaran et al. 2013). In the last decade, many investigators proposed that PMd is a node of the MirN circuit (Bonini 2017), providing neuroimaging [monkeys: (Raos et al. 2007); humans: (Molenberghs et al. 2012)] and neuroanatomical data (Bruni et al. 2018) to support this view. ...
We identified neurons in dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) of the macaque brain that respond during execution and observation of reaching-to-grasp actions, thus fulfilling the mirror neuron (MirN) criterion. During observation, the percentage of grip-selective MirNs in PMd and area F5 were comparable, and the selectivity indices in the two areas were similar. During execution, F5-MirNs were more selective than PMd-MirNs for grip, which was reflected in the higher selectivity indices in F5 than in PMd. PMd displayed grip-related information earlier than F5 during both conditions. In both areas, the number of neurons exhibiting congruent visual and motor selectivity did not differ from that expected by chance. However, both the PMd and F5 neuronal ensembles provided observation-execution matching, suggesting that the congruency may be achieved in a distributed fashion across the selective elements of the population. Furthermore, representational similarity analysis revealed that grip encoding in PMd and F5 is alike during both observation and execution. Our study provides direct evidence of mirror activity in PMd during observation of forelimb movements, and suggests that PMd is a node of the MirN circuit.
... Mirror neurons, originally discovered by using intracranial electrodes in the premotor and the parietal cortex of monkeys, discharge not only when individuals perform a particular action (e.g., reaching for a piece of food) but also when they observe others performing the same or a similar action (Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 1996, 2002. This discovery was an important milestone in neuroscience, because it showed that action perception and action execution were intrinsically linked from the neuronal level. ...
Action observation neurorehabilitation systems are usually based on the observation of a virtual limb performing different kinds of actions. In this way, the activity in the frontoparietal Mirror Neuron System is enhanced, which can be helpful to rehabilitate stroke patients. However, the presence of limbs in such systems might not be necessary to produce mirror activity: for example, frontoparietal mirror activity can be produced just by the observation of virtual tool movements. The objective of this work was to explore to what point the presence of a virtual limb impacts the Mirror Neuron System activity in neurorehabilitation systems. This was done by using an action observation neurorehabilitation task during an fMRI experiment with healthy volunteers and comparing two action observation conditions that: 1-included or 2-did not include a virtual limb. It was found that activity in the Mirror Neuron System was similar during both conditions. These results open up the possibility of using new tasks that do not include virtual limbs in action observation neurorehabilitation environments, which can give more freedom to develop such systems.
... These neurons respond to specific actions such as grasping, tearing, holding, or manipulating a given item both when the monkey is so acting and also when it isn't acting other than in observing someone else (e.g., an experimenter or another monkey) performing those actions. Neurons with mirror properties were later discovered in a sector of the posterior parietal cortex reciprocally connected with area F5 (Bonini et al. 2010;Fogassi et al. 2005;Gallese et al. 2002), in the primary motor cortex (area F1) (Dushanova and Donoghue 2010;Tkach et al. 2007), and in the dorsal premotor cortex (PMD) (Cisek and Kalaska 2004). More recently, pyramidal tract neurons (PTNs) originating from both F5 and F1 were reported to respond to action observation (Kraskov et al. 2009;Vigneswaran et al. 2013). ...
Mental simulation was claimed to provide a distinctive way of gaining knowledge
about others’ actions and thoughts since the late 1980s (Gordon 1986; Heal 1986;
Goldman 1989). A decade later, the discovery of mirror neurons in macaque monkeys
and the evidence of mirror brain areas in humans presented a new angle on this claim
(Gallese and Goldman 1998), suggesting also an embodied approach to simulation
(Gallese 2003, 2005).
The present chapter aims at introducing and discussing such an embodied approach
and its role in basic social cognition. To this aim, we shall start by characterizing the
distinctive features of embodied simulation (ES). Although ES has been proposed to
account for not only action mirroring, but also emotion and sensation mirroring
(Gallese 2003; Gallese, Keysers, and Rizzolatti 2004; Gallese and Sinigaglia 2011; Gallese
2014) and even language processing (Gallese 2008; Glenberg and Gallese 2012), we shall
confine ourselves here to its motor aspects.
There is substantial evidence that ES may critically contribute to understanding
others’ actions, or so we shall argue. In doing this, we shall also explore the conjecture
that ES might involve a common ground for action execution and observation not only
at the functional but also at the phenomenological level.
... In their theoretical interpretation of the function of the mirror neuron system in primates, the cognitive neuroscientists Vittorio Gallese and Maria Umiltà (2006) offer a strong critique this taxonomic dissociation in primate social cognition. Mirror neurons were first discovered in the premotor cortex of the macaque monkey (di Pellegrino et al. 1992;Gallese et al. 1996), and were subsequently found in a reciprocally connected area of the macaque posterior parietal cortex (Gallese et al. 2002). ...
Moll and Tomasello's Vygotskian Intelligence Hypothesis (2007) is reviewed and critiqued, with a focus on its account of uniquely human joint attentional declarative pointing. Theoretical constructs at the core of this account are joint action, joint attention frames, perspectival representations and shared intentionality. Drawing from cognitive, developmental and comparative psychology, cognitive neuroscience and philosophy, I argue that that any account of declarative pointing needs to distinguish between shared intentionalityA (joint action based shared cogntition), and shared intentionalityR (the normatively constrained 'aboutness' or representational nature of cognition that is shared), and provide an account of both. Both are critical to understanding uniquely human cognition. Building on the Vygotskian Intelligence Hypothesis, I develop the Shared Intentionality(R) Hypothesis that accommodates these two distinct, but arguably related, types of intentionality in its explanatory account. In doing so I offer a novel explanation for declarative pointing, and introduce some new conceptual distinctions and challenges to the shared cognition literature.
... Indeed, the activation of mirror mechanisms may play a crucial role in aesthetic experience (Di Dio et al., 2016;Freedberg and Gallese, 2007;Gallese, 2011Gallese, , 2017. Mirror neurons were initially discovered in the premotor area F5 and in a sector of the posterior parietal cortex of the macaque monkey brain (Gallese et al., , 2002Rizzolatti et al., 1996) and are a class of multimodal motor neurons that discharge both when the monkey executes goal-related motor acts and when, the same monkey observes others executing analogous acts. In other words, there is a common neural basis for both executed and observed actions in the macaque monkey brain. ...
Nowadays, works of art can be enjoyed in both their original and reproduced format. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the format of a work of art could influence physiological and cognitive responses in beholders. Two abstract works of art and their digital reproductions were selected as experimental stimuli and displayed for 2min to 60 participants in a museum. HRV, HR, and RMSSD were recorded, while participants observed the works of art. Subsequently, participants provided behavioral ratings of color intensity, emotional intensity, aesthetic evaluation, perceived movement, and desire to touch the works of art. Results demonstrated that the faithful high-quality digital reproduction of works of art could be as arousing as the original works of art, but at the same time, they cannot replace the experience of standing in front of an authentic work of art in terms of explicit hedonic attributed values. Furthermore, specific interactions between individual inclinations to identify with fictional characters and acquired art competences in the context of aesthetic experience were found.
... In macaques, the observation of actions related to eating behavior activates motor representations similar to those observed. The basic mechanism underlying this phenomenon has to do with a class of visuomotor neurons, named mirror neurons, found in the macaque's premotor and parietal cortex (Gallese et al. 1996(Gallese et al. , 2002Fogassi et al. 2005). The mirror neurons become active both when the monkey makes a specific action with its hand (or mouth) and when the monkey observes similar hand (or mouth) actions performed by another individual. ...
From an evolutionary perspective, understanding chimpanzees offers a way of understanding the basis of human nature. This book on cognitive development in chimpanzees is the first of its kind to focus on infants reared by their own mothers within a natural setting, illustrating various aspects of chimpanzee cognition and the developmental changes that accompany them. The subjects of this book are chimpanzees of three generations inhabiting an enriched environment as well as a wild community in West Africa; and phenomena such as face recognition, concept formation, object manipulation, tool manufacture and use, decision making, learning, communication, self-awareness, intentionality, understanding others’ minds, cooperation, deception, altruism, and reciprocity observed within these groups are reported herein. Unique approaches both in the field and in the laboratory go hand in hand to illustrate the cognitive world of our closest living evolutionary relatives.
... Positive effects of observational learning have been shown in a wide variety of experimental paradigms (e.g., for a review, see Wulf & Mornell, 2008). Moreover, some neuroimaging studies have also shown supportive results for observational learning; a network including the premotor cortex, inferior parietal lobule, superior temporal sulcus and supplementary motor area is activated during observation, which is like the activation seen during physical practice (e.g., Buccino et al., 2001;Dushanova & Donoghue, 2010;Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 2002;Grafton, Fadiga, Arbib, & Rizzolatti, 1997). ...
This study investigated whether implicit learning of sequence by observation occurred in a serial reaction time task and if the learning effects were modulated by model behavioral type. In Experiment 1, we let 20 participants perform a sequence for 12 blocks and chose the best and worst performance models based on reaction time and errors. In Experiment 2, new observers viewed a movie clip chosen from the following three: the best model performing the sequential task in the first (the first six blocks) or second session (the last six blocks), or the worst model performing the task in the first session. Then, the observers performed the observed sequence, a test sequence, and awareness test. We found that (1) implicit sequential learning occurred by observation regardless of model behavior type, (2) the learning effects were not susceptible to model behavior type, and (3) speed index reflecting reaction time became larger even in the test session when the observers viewed the best model performing the second session. Overall, observers developed general motor-representations through action–observation. In addition, their responses were also contagious; if the model performed the sequence faster, the observer might be able to perform the sequence faster.
... More specifically, neuroanatomical and functional studies have shown that the hand sector of F5 has direct anatomical connections with different hand sectors of the parietal cortex, including areas AIP and PFG (Rozzi et al., 2006;Borra et al., 2008;Bonini et al., 2010;Gerbella et al., 2011). Similarly to F5, these parietal areas host motor neurons coding goal directed motor acts and visuomotor neurons, including MNs in relation to hand actions (Gallese et al., 2002;Fogassi et al., 2005;Rozzi et al., 2008;Maeda et al., 2015). Within the mirror circuit (so called because of the well-established AIP/PFG-F5 connections), it has been proposed that these parietal areas convey visual information regarding hand grasping movements, and are the first hub of the visual input deriving from the temporal cortex, within the STS region. ...
The vast majority of functional studies investigating mirror neurons (MNs) explored their properties in relation to hand actions, and very few investigated how MNs respond to mouth actions or communicative gestures. Since hand and mouth MNs were recorded in two partially overlapping sectors of the ventral precentral cortex of the macaque monkey, there is a general assumption that they share a same neuroanatomical network, with the parietal cortex as a main source of visual information. In the current review, we challenge this perspective and describe the connectivity pattern of mouth MNs sector. The mouth MNs F5/opercular region is connected with premotor, parietal areas mostly related to the somatosensory and motor representation of the face/mouth, and with area PrCO, involved in processing gustatory and somatosensory intraoral input. Unlike hand MNs, mouth MNs do not receive their visual input from parietal regions. Such information related to face/communicative behaviors could come from the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Further strong connections derive from limbic structures involved in encoding emotional facial expressions and motivational/reward processing. These brain structures include the anterior cingulate cortex, the anterior and mid-dorsal insula, orbitofrontal cortex and the basolateral amygdala. The mirror mechanism is therefore composed and supported by at least two different anatomical pathways: one is concerned with sensorimotor transformation in relation to reaching and hand grasping within the traditional parietal-premotor circuits; the second one is linked to the mouth/face motor control and is connected with limbic structures, involved in communication/emotions and reward processing.
... Mirror neurons are a specialized subset of brain cells with visuomotor properties that discharge during both action execution and passive observation of actions performed by others. These cells were originally discovered in the ventral premotor cortex of the macaque monkey (area F5) (Dipellegrino et al., 1992;Gallese et al., 1996;Rizzolatti et al., 1996) and were subsequently demonstrated in other areas in the human and non-human motor pathway (Gallese et al., 2002;Fogassi et al., 2005;Gazzola and Keysers, 2009;Caspers et al., 2010;Mukamel et al., 2010;Molenberghs et al., 2012). These areas-largely consisting of the primary and premotor cortices, the inferior frontal gyrus and parietal regions-were termed the mirror neuron system (MNS). ...
Mirror neurons are a subset of brain cells that discharge during action execution and passive observation of similar actions. An open question concerns the functional role of their ability to match observed and executed actions. Since understanding of goals requires conscious perception of actions, we expect that mirror neurons potentially involved in action goal coding, will be modulated by changes in action perception level. Here, we manipulated perception level of action videos depicting short hand movements and measured the corresponding fMRI BOLD responses in mirror regions. Our results show that activity levels within a network of regions, including the sensorimotor cortex, primary motor cortex, dorsal premotor cortex and posterior superior temporal sulcus, are sensitive to changes in action perception level, whereas activity levels in the inferior frontal gyrus, ventral premotor cortex, supplementary motor area and superior parietal lobule are invariant to such changes. In addition, this parcellation to two sub-networks manifest as smaller functional distances within each group of regions during task and resting state. Our results point to functional differences between regions within the mirror neurons system which may have implications with respect to their possible role in action understanding.
Difficulties in reasoning about others' mental states (i.e., mentalising / Theory of Mind) are highly prevalent among disorders featuring dopamine dysfunctions (e.g., Parkinson's disease) and significantly affect individuals' quality of life. However, due to multiple confounding factors inherent to existing patient studies, currently little is known about whether these socio-cognitive symptoms originate from aberrant dopamine signalling or from psychosocial changes unrelated to dopamine. The present study therefore investigated the role of dopamine in modulating mentalising in a sample of healthy volunteers. We used a double-blind, placebo-controlled procedure to test the effect of the D2 antagonist haloperidol on mental state attribution, using an adaptation of the Heider & Simmel (1944) animations task. On two separate days, once after receiving 2.5mg haloperidol and once after receiving placebo, 33 healthy adult participants viewed and labelled short videos of two triangles depicting mental state (e.g., surprising) and non-mental state (e.g., following) interactions. Using Bayesian mixed effects models we observed that haloperidol decreased accuracy in labelling both mental- and non-mental state animations. Our secondary analyses suggest that dopamine modulates inference from mental- and non-mental state animations via independent mechanisms, pointing towards two putative pathways underlying the dopaminergic modulation of mental state attribution: Action representation and a shared mechanism supporting mentalising and emotion recognition. We conclude that dopamine is causally implicated in Theory of Mind. Our results have implications for the neurochemical basis of socio-cognitive difficulties in patients with dopamine dysfunctions and generate new hypotheses about the specific dopamine-mediated mechanisms underlying social cognition.
This chapter describes the main developmental lines of the preschool-age child from ages 3 to 6 years approximately. We describe the mastery of skills in language, intersubjectivity, theory of mind, and the concept of false belief. The child requires pleasurable interactions and the admiration of caregivers to achieve a sense of who he or she is in relation to his family. The boy or girl achieves enormous gains in language, fine and gross motor abilities, capacity to play, to perform simple operations, and to regulate his or her emotions. The normal child has intense emotions, fear, anger, jealousy, sadness, as well as love and compassion. Each culture promotes certain character traits considered desirable for the boy or girl, which are reinforced, and through this process, the child will become a social being. In normal circumstances, the child trusts his or her parents unconditionally and feels protected and admired by them. Finally, we describe the young child’s theories and concepts of illness and mortality.KeywordsPreoperational thinkingMagical thinkingSymbolic playEmotional regulationMotor skillsEmotional needsTheory of mindFalse belief
The mirror neuron system consists of fronto-parietal regions and responds to both goal-directed action execution and observation. The broader action observation network is specifically involved in observation of actions and is thought to play a role in understanding the goals of the motor act, the intention of others, empathy, and language. Many, but not all, studies have found mirror neuron system or action observation network dysfunction in autism spectrum disorder. The objective of this study was to use observation of a goal-directed action fMRI paradigm to examine the action observation network in autism spectrum disorder and to determine whether fronto-parietal activation is associated with language ability. Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (n = 23) were compared to typically developing adolescents (n = 20), 11–17 years. Overall, there were no group differences in activation, however, the autism spectrum group with impaired expressive language (n = 13) had significantly reduced inferior frontal and inferior parietal activation during action viewing. In controls, right supramarginal gyrus activation was associated with higher expressive language; bilateral supramarginal and left pars opercularis activation was associated with better verbal-gesture integration. Results suggest that action-observation network dysfunction may characterize a subgroup of individuals with autism spectrum disorder with expressive language deficits. Therefore, interventions that target this dysfunctional network may improve expressive language in this autism spectrum subgroup. Future treatment studies should individualize therapeutic approaches based on brain-behavior relationships.
Socially situated thought and behaviour are pervasive and vitally important in human society. The social brain has become a focus of study for researchers in the neurosciences, psychology, biology and other areas of behavioural science, and it is becoming increasingly clear that social behaviour is heavily dependent on shared representations. Any social activity, from a simple conversation to a well-drilled military exercise to an exquisitely perfected dance routine, involves information sharing between the brains of those involved. This volume comprises a collection of cutting-edge essays centred on the idea of shared representations, broadly defined. Featuring contributions from established world leaders in their fields and written in a simultaneously accessible and detailed style, this is an invaluable resource for established researchers and those who are new to the field.
Action understanding of children develops from simple associative learning to mentalizing. With the rise of embodied cognition, the role of interoception in action observation and action understanding has received more attention. From a developmental perspective, this study proposes a novel developmental model that explores how interoception promotes action understanding of children across ages. In early infancy, most actions observed in infants come from interactions with their caregivers. Babies learn about action effects through automatic interoceptive processing and interoceptive feedback. Interoception in early infancy is not fully developed, such as the not fully developed gastrointestinal tract and intestinal nervous system. Therefore, in early infancy, action understanding is based on low-level and original interoceptive information. At this stage, after observing the actions of others, infants can create mental representations or even imitate actions without external visual feedback, which requires interoception to provide internal reference information. By early childhood, children begin to infer action intentions of other people by integrating various types of information to reach the mentalizing level. Interoception processing requires the integration of multiple internal signals, which promotes the information integration ability of children. Interoception also provides inner information for reasoning about action intention. This review also discussed the neural mechanisms of interoception and possible ways by which it could promote action understanding of children. In early infancy, the central autonomic neural network (CAN) automatically processes and responds to the actions of caregivers on infants, providing interoceptive information for action understanding of infants. In infancy, the growth of the somatomotor system provides important internal reference information for observing and imitating the actions of infants. In early childhood, the development of interoception of children facilitates the integration of internal and external information, which promotes the mentalization of action understanding of children. According to the proposed developmental model of action understanding of children promoted by interoception, there are multilevel and stage-dependent characteristics that impact the role of interoception in action understanding of children.
Some people diagnosed with schizophrenia show an alteration of the sense of self. From a psychodynamic perspective, it has been hypothesized they have disorders of the integration of self/other identification/differentiation processes. From a neuroscientific view some with this diagnosis present dysfunctions in neural correlates of representation of self from other (the implicit sensorimotor-based bodily self), and self united with other. In “Sense of self and psychosis, part 1” we discussed scientific literature offering empirical evidence for the psychodynamic clinical observations that patients with diagnoses of psychoses didn't receive adequate early infancy parental care and sufficient affective-sensorial/tactile interactions. Introducing parental care/cutaneous interactions seemed relevant in the analytic treatment of psychoses, as the pioneers of the psychoanalytic approach to psychosis suggested. From this theoretical basis we developed amniotic therapy, which reproduces the affective-tactile interactions of early infancy, insufficient in cases of psychosis, and aims at integrating the processes of differentiation and identification. We present a single case study of an experimental intervention plan including amniotic therapy. Results showed increases in interoception and global functioning, with significant decreases in positive symptoms suggesting that amniotic therapy contributes to increasing the protective strength of self-boundaries and integration of identification/differentiation processes.
Social interaction is thought to provide a selection pressure for human intelligence, yet little is known about its neurobiological basis and evolution throughout the primate lineage. Recent advances in neuroimaging have enabled whole brain investigation of brain structure, function, and connectivity in humans and non-human primates (NHPs), leading to a nascent field of comparative connectomics. However, linking social behavior to brain organization across the primates remains challenging. Here, we review the current understanding of the macroscale neural mechanisms of social behaviors from the viewpoint of system neuroscience. We first demonstrate an association between the number of cortical neurons and the size of social groups across primates, suggesting a link between neural information-processing capacity and social capabilities. Moreover, by capitalizing on recent advances in species-harmonized functional MRI, we demonstrate that portions of the mirror neuron system and default-mode networks, which are thought to be important for representation of the other's actions and sense of self, respectively, exhibit similarities in functional organization in macaque monkeys and humans, suggesting possible homologies. With respect to these two networks, we describe recent developments in the neurobiology of social perception, joint attention, personality and social complexity. Together, the Human Connectome Project (HCP)-style comparative neuroimaging, hyperscanning, behavioral, and other multi-modal investigations are expected to yield important insights into the evolutionary foundations of human social behavior.
Action perception relies on a parieto-premotor brain network engaged during both perception of actions performed by conspecifics and actual execution of actions. Despite important overlap between neural activations during action observation and action execution, the functional relevance of these activities remains debated. In this chapter, we will discuss how the study of action perception may effectively be enriched by applying core principles of motor control. By doing so, we present evidences in favour of: (i) the presence of a modular control strategy in action observation; (ii) the role of motor inhibition in coping with unpredictable action outcomes. We conclude that reaffirming the strong parallel with motor control would provide important insight into the investigation of action perception mechanisms.
The article details one of the reasons for the lack of consensuality regarding maintaining the analysis of the psychic defense, respectively of the mechanisms of psychological defense in DSM V (Vaillant, 2012). Thus, the article offers a retrospective on the evolution, number and conceptual diversification of one of the best known psychoanalytic concepts. clinical utility, respectively of the mechanisms of mental defense. The elimination of the psychological defense mechanisms from the last edition of the DSM caused by the lack of consensus regarding the number of adaptive levels and the number of psychological defense mechanisms (Vaillant, 2012), followed after the validation and introduction of the defense analysis in the previous edition of DSM IV (APA, 2000/2003) in the form of a scale – Psychic Defense Functioning Scale (APA, 2000/2003). Inventory of psychological defense mechanisms begins with the first psychological defense mechanisms, as defined by Sigmund Freud (Freud, A, 2002a) and until the elimination of the psychological defense mechanisms from DSM V (Vaillant, 2012). In this context, the present inventory of the number of psychological defense mechanisms provides an image for each psychological defense mechanism and their variants, as formulated by different authors from the appearance of the concept of psychological defense mechanism to the inclusion and validation of the psychological defense analysis in DSM IV (APA, 2000/2003), being identified a number of 110 psychological defense mechanisms in different forms as conceptualized by different authors from Sigmund Freud until DSM IV (APA, 2000/2003).
Painting is a form of artistic creativity involving translation of emotional, subconscious, expressive, impressive, intellectual and creative communication into two−/three-dimensional plane through application of dyes, colorants or other marking substances with usage of paintbrushes, paper, cloths or other materials. This process is very complex involving the starting conceptual phase followed by active executive production. The mechanical process of painting/drawing involves unique paint/dye application techniques supported by visual–spatial skills. Art perception and appreciation are likely a mirror process to artistic production where afferent artistic trigger ignites emotional, intellectual and other reactions in the viewer. The neural network behind all these processes, both at the side of the artist and viewer, is very complex and it should be viewed beyond simple anatomical landmarks such as brain lobes and laterality. Due to the above-mentioned complexity of artistic brain activity it is really interesting to discuss and analyse these processes in people with central nervous system disorders. In this chapter we will walk the reader through a concept of mirroring connection between the artist and art receiver as well as through various scenarios including development of artistic skills de novo, or change of artistic skills in relation to central nervous system disorders.
In this chapter the human embrained systems starting with the memory, the multimodal processes (visual, auditory, haptic, proprioceptive, vestibular olfactive, gustative, spatial), and the action via the neuron mirror system are analysed. These structure-function systems, which are considered to be in permanent interaction with each other are non verbal processes and are the basis of oral, written language, number and calculation action, i.e. the verbal processes. Their interaction with emotional process is given from a neurocognitive point of view. Self-consciousness and consciousness are analysed as emerging high level processes.
Motor interference occurs when action execution is hindered by the observation of an incongruent action. The present study used a novel eye-tracking paradigm to test the motor interference effect in 22 preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 14 preschoolers with Williams syndrome (WS), and 18 typically developing (TD) peers. In TD children, performance of a pre-determined action was slower after the observation of an incongruent motor action and faster following observation of a congruent motor action, indicating a motor interference effect. In both the ASD and WS groups, performance was unaffected by the congruent versus incongruent nature of the observed motor action.
This chapter gives an overview of the background of previous studies on interpersonal coordination. While Dunbar’s social brain theory is directly related to human social behaviors, the social behaviors also involve Graziano’s action map view of the primary motor cortex. Prinz’s common coding theory proposes that perception and action share a common cognitive architecture. In other words, action experience changes not only domain-specific behavioral performance, but the neural basis of action observation. Because the representation of the action is also activated by observing action effects, the observation of action facilitates its performance. At the neural level, the mirror neuron system may provide the central nervous system for ideomotor mechanisms, and it is thus a candidate neural system underlying mimicry and imitation. When we observe others performing actions with which we are familiar, we experience increased motor resonance even when we have no intent to act. In addition, the extent to which an individual recruits sensorimotor processes during observation seems to be tightly linked to the individual’s ability to perform the action he is observing. The more familiar the observer is with a given action sequence, the greater the neural response magnitude in premotor and parietal areas seems to be. Representations of shared goals further facilitate interpersonal coordination such as musical ensemble performances in piano duet. In team sports, the intra- and inter-couplings of playing dyads has been proposed as the basis for space-time patterns. Intra-coupling refers to the linkage between two players from the same team and inter-coupling to the linkage between two players from opposing teams. The idea of coupling and layerings (coupling of coupling) predicts on the unifying principle of self-organizing dynamical principles.
We build upon the functional object-oriented network (FOON), a structured knowledge representation which is constructed from observations of human activities and manipulations. A FOON can be used for representing object-motion affordances. Knowledge retrieval through graph search allows us to obtain novel manipulation sequences using knowledge spanning across many video sources, hence the novelty in our approach. However, we are limited to the sources collected. To further improve the performance of knowledge retrieval as a follow up to our previous work, we discuss generalizing knowledge to be applied to objects which are similar to what we have in FOON without manually annotating new sources of knowledge. We discuss two means of generalization: 1) expanding our network through the use of object similarity to create new functional units from those we already have, and 2) compressing the functional units by object categories rather than specific objects. We discuss experiments which compare the performance of our knowledge retrieval algorithm with both expansion and compression by categories.
Viewing a hand action performed by another person facilitates a response-compatible action and slows a response-incompatible one, even when the viewed action is irrelevant to the task. This automatic imitation effect is taken as the clearest evidence for a direct mapping between action viewing and motor performance. But there is an ongoing debate whether this effect is innate or experience dependent. We tackled this issue by studying a unique group of newly sighted children who suffered from dense bilateral cataracts from early infancy and were surgically treated only years later. The newly sighted children were less affected by viewing task-irrelevant actions than were control children, even 2 years after the cataract-removal surgery. This strongly suggests that visually guided motor experience is necessary for the development of automatic imitation. At the very least, our results indicate that if imitation is based on innate mechanisms, these are clearly susceptible to long periods of visual deprivation.
According to the traditional view, the motor system of the cerebral cortex has the fundamental role of driving and controlling movement execution. However, the neurophysiological and anatomical data of the last thirty years demonstrated that the main task of the motor cortex is rather that of coding the motor goals. In fact, motor cortex contains a neural storage of motor representations that are used for the sensorimotor transformations necessary for performing goal-directed actions and, at the same time, code important cognitive functions such as space and object representation and recognition of others’ behaviour. In this chapter, it will be described first how space coding and object coding are represented in dedicated frontoparietal networks. Then, most of the chapter will be focused on the description of the functional properties of another frontoparietal network, the mirror neuron system. Firstly, the basic and the most recent characteristics of mirror neurons in the monkey will be presented. Secondly, the main features of the mirror neuron system in humans will be described. The last part of this chapter will be concentrated on two social cognitive functions based on the mirror neuron mechanism: imitation and understanding of others’ motor intentions.
An important function of emotion is to enable individuals to adapt to the environment through induction of physiological and behavioral responses directly toward, or in anticipation of, biologically significant events such as food and predators. Another important function is to provide a social signal for other individuals in the group. This emotional signal often induces the same emotional state in the observer, a process called emotional contagion, which serves as a surrogate for others to learn through observation and provide cues to take actions in pro-social ways or, on occasions, in Machiavellian ways. Empathy, a term used to encompass these various social functions of emotion, is thus crucial for the survival of many species of animals including humans. In this chapter, we review literature concerning experimental studies of empathy in the laboratory animals, mostly rodents, which could provide a clue to understand the evolutionary origin of empathy. We first review basic findings concerning emotional contagion and introduce recent studies that examined the importance of social comparison in automatic empathetic responses, which indicate that the nonstandard forms of empathy such as envy, schadenfreude, as well as inequity aversion, may exist in rodents. We then discuss the functional significance of empathy by reviewing literature on observational learning and helping behavior. We then offer mechanistic analyses of empathy on the basis of the principles of associative learning. Finally, we discuss the evolutionary origin of social comparison.
Mirror neurons are a class of visuomotor neurons that have been discovered in the ventral premotor (area F5) and the posterior parietal cortex (area PFG) of the macaque monkey. They are activated both when a monkey performs a goal-directed motor act and when the monkey observes the same, or similar, act performed by the experimenter or by a conspecific. They are thought to play a role in action understanding and imitation. Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that a mirror system is activated also in humans and chimpanzees. Mirror neurons were found in the premotor cortex of the marmoset, a New World monkey, indicating that such mirroring mechanism has been highly preserved in the course of evolution. Indeed, neuronal mirroring of observed behaviors has been shown in phylogenetically ancient structures, such as the basal ganglia, and in subcortical regions related to visceromotor reactions, such as the insular and cingulate cortices. It is possible that the involvement of such brain structures during the direct experience and perception of others' emotions has been instrumental for sharing similar emotional experience and could represent the building block of the emergence of empathic behaviors in several species of primates.
This paper presents a novel structured knowledge representation called the functional object-oriented network (FOON) to model the connectivity of the functional-related objects and their motions in manipulation tasks. The graphical model FOON is learned by observing object state change and human manipulations with the objects. Using a well-trained FOON, robots can decipher a task goal, seek the correct objects at the desired states on which to operate, and generate a sequence of proper manipulation motions. The paper describes FOON's structure and an approach to form a universal FOON with extracted knowledge from online instructional videos. A graph retrieval approach is presented to generate manipulation motion sequences from the FOON to achieve a desired goal, demonstrating the flexibility of FOON in creating a novel and adaptive means of solving a problem using knowledge gathered from multiple sources. The results are demonstrated in a simulated environment to illustrate the motion sequences generated from the FOON to carry out the desired tasks.
We live in a meaningful world. Our capacity to deal with the external world is constituted by the possibility of modifying the world by means of our actions; by the possibility of representing the world as an objective reality; and by the possibility of experiencing phenomenally this same objective reality, from a situated, self-conscious perspective. It is tempting to address these different articulations of the sense of being related to the world', of our intentional relation to the world, by using different languages, different methods of investigations, perhaps even different ontologies. In the present paper I will start to explore the possibility of reconciling some of these different articulations of intentionality from a neurobiological perspective