On beyond mirror neurons: internal representations subserving imitation and recognition of skilled object-related actions in humans.
A considerable recent literature argues that the same representations, encoded by inferior prefrontal and parietal cells known as "mirror neurons", may be activated in both production and recognition of object-related actions. Here, we test several predictions derived from the contemporary literature on the parity between production and recognition and the putative emergence of the mirror neuron system from a system coding hand-object interactions. Forty-four patients with left-hemisphere stroke, 21 of whom exhibited ideomotor apraxia, performed a number of pantomime imitation and recognition tasks, and performance was scored with respect to hand posture, arm posture, amplitude, and timing. Consistent with predictions, there were strong relationships between object-related pantomime imitation and object-related pantomime recognition, and between imitation and recognition of the hand posture component of object-related actions. Skilled object-related gesture representations are likely to be closely tied to evolutionarily more primitive systems controlling object grasping, to emerge from a mapping between object and action information coded by ventral and dorsal streams, and to be lateralized to the left hemisphere in humans.
Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Korman 213, Philadelphia, PA 19141, USA. Lbuxbaum@einstein.edu
Laurel J
LJ
Buxbaum
Kathleen M
KM
Kyle
Rukmini
R
Menon
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D020240:Apraxia, Ideomotor / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D020521:Stroke / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology