title: Impairment of actions chains in autism and its possible role in intention understanding.
abstract: Experiments in monkeys demonstrated that many parietal and premotor neurons coding a specific motor act (e.g., grasping) show a markedly different activation when this act is part of actions that have different goals (e.g., grasping for eating vs. grasping for placing). Many of these "action-constrained" neurons have mirror properties firing selectively to the observation of the initial motor act of the actions to which they belong motorically. By activating a specific action chain from its very outset, this mechanism allows the observers to have an internal copy of the whole action before its execution, thus enabling them to understand directly the agent's intention. Using electromyographic recordings, we show that a similar chained organization exists in typically developing children, whereas it is impaired in children with autism. We propose that, as a consequence of this functional impairment, high-functioning autistic children may understand the intentions of others cognitively but lack the mechanism for understanding them experientially.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università di Parma, Via Volturno 39, 43100 Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Luigi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cattaneo
authors.forename: Maddalena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fabbri-Destro
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Boria
authors.forename: Cinzia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pieraccini
authors.forename: Annalisa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Monti
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cossu
authors.forename: Giacomo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rizzolatti
mesh_terms: D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D004576:Electromyography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values