title: Processing of Own Hand Visual Feedback during Object Grasping in Ventral Premotor Mirror Neurons.
abstract: Mirror neurons (MNs) discharge during action execution as well as during observation of others' actions. Our own actions are those that we have the opportunity to observe more frequently, but no study thus far to our knowledge has addressed the issue of whether, and to what extent, MNs can code own hand visual feedback (HVF) during object grasping. Here, we show that MNs of the ventral premotor area F5 of macaque monkeys are particularly sensitive to HVF relative to non-MNs simultaneously recorded in the same penetrations. Importantly, the HVF effect is more evident on MN activity during hand-object interaction than during the hand-shaping phase. Furthermore, the increase of MN activity induced by HVF and others' actions observed from a subjective perspective were positively correlated. These findings indicate that at least part of ventral premotor MNs can process the visual information coming from own hand interacting with objects, likely playing a role in self-action monitoring.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We show that mirror neurons (MNs) of area F5 of the macaque, in addition to encoding others' observed actions, are particularly sensitive, relative to simultaneously recorded non-MNs, to the sight of the monkey's own hand during object grasping, likely playing a role in self-action monitoring.
authors: Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Brain Center for Social and Motor Cognition, 43125 Parma, Italy, and monica.maranesi@iit.it luca.bonini@unipr.it.
authors: Monica
authors: M
authors: Maranesi
authors: Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università di Parma, 43125 Parma, Italy.
authors: Alessandro
authors: A
authors: Livi
authors: Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Brain Center for Social and Motor Cognition, 43125 Parma, Italy, and monica.maranesi@iit.it luca.bonini@unipr.it.
authors: Luca
authors: L
authors: Bonini
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D056228:Feedback, Sensory / Q000502:physiology*; D018737:Hand Strength / Q000502:physiology*; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008254:Macaca nemestrina; D008297:Male; D059167:Mirror Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: action observation; area F5; visuomotor processing