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.
Buxbaum
Laurel J
LJ
Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Korman 213, Philadelphia, PA 19141, USA. Lbuxbaum@einstein.edu
Kyle
Kathleen M
KM
Menon
Rukmini
R
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