title: What you see is what you get: motor resonance in peripheral vision.
abstract: Observation of others' actions evokes a subliminal motor resonant response, which reflects the motor program encoding observed actions. The possibility that actions located in the peripheral field of vision may also activate motor resonant responses has not been investigated. We examine the excitability modulation of motor pathways in response to grasping actions viewed in near peripheral vision; results are directly compared to responses to the same actions viewed in central vision (Borroni et al. in Eur J Neurosci 34:662-669, 2011. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2011.07779.x ). We hypothesize that actions observed in peripheral vision are effective in modulating the excitability of motor pathways, but that responses have a low kinematic specificity. While the neural resources of central vision provide the most accurate perception of biological motion, the decreased visual acuity in periphery may be sufficient to discriminate only general aspects of movement and perhaps to recognize the gist of visual scenes. Right-handed subjects observed a video of two grasping actions at 10° eccentricity in the horizontal plane. Motor-evoked potentials were elicited in the right OP and ADM muscles by TMS of the left primary motor cortex at different delays during the observed actions. Results show that actions viewed in near peripheral vision are effective in modulating the subliminal activation of motor circuits, but that responses are rough and inaccurate, and do not reflect the motor program encoding the observed action or its goal. We suggest that due to their limited kinematic accuracy, these subliminal motor responses may provide information about the general aspects of observed actions, rather than their specific execution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences, Medical School, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via A. di Rudinì 8, 20142, Milan, Italy. antonella.leonetti@unimi.it.
authors.forename: Antonella
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Leonetti
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences, Medical School, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via A. di Rudinì 8, 20142, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Guglielmo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Puglisi
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences, Medical School, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via A. di Rudinì 8, 20142, Milan, Italy.|Department of Data Analysis, Faculty of Psychology and Pedagogical Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Roma
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Siugzdaite
authors.affiliation: Saint John of God Clinical Research Centre, Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: Clarissa
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Biotechnology and Translational Medicine, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Gabriella
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cerri
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences, Medical School, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via A. di Rudinì 8, 20142, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Borroni
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004525:Efferent Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D019054:Evoked Potentials, Motor / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D059167:Mirror Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Action observation; Grasping; Mirror neuron system; Motor cortex; TMS