Haptic contents of a movie dynamically engage the spectator's sensorimotor cortex

Abstract

Observation of another person's actions and feelings activates brain areas that support similar functions in the observer, thereby facilitating inferences about the other's mental and bodily states. In real life, events eliciting this kind of vicarious brain activations are intermingled with other complex, ever‐changing stimuli in the environment. One practical approach to study the neural underpinnings of real‐life vicarious perception is to image brain activity during movie viewing. Here the goal was to find out how observed haptic events in a silent movie would affect the spectator's sensorimotor cortex. The functional state of the sensorimotor cortex was monitored by analyzing, in 16 healthy subjects, magnetoencephalographic (MEG) responses to tactile finger stimuli that were presented once per second throughout the session. Using canonical correlation analysis and spatial filtering, consistent single‐trial responses across subjects were uncovered, and their waveform changes throughout the movie were quantified. The long‐latency (85–175 ms) parts of the responses were modulated in concordance with the participants’ average moment‐by‐moment ratings of own engagement in the haptic content of the movie (correlation r = 0.49; ratings collected after the MEG session). The results, obtained by using novel signal‐analysis approaches, demonstrate that the functional state of the human sensorimotor cortex fluctuates in a fine‐grained manner even during passive observation of temporally varying haptic events. Hum Brain Mapp 37:4061–4068, 2016. © 2016 The Authors Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Inter-Individual Differences in Vicarious Tactile Perception: a View Across the Lifespan in Typical and Atypical Populations

“…and MEG studies (e.g., Adler et al, 2016;Bufalari et al, 2007;Coll, et al, 2015;Deschrijver et al, 2015;Lankinen et al, 2016;Martinez-Jauand et al, 2012;Pihko et al, 2010;Streltsova and McCleery, 2014).…”

“…It is thought that there are functional dissociations within SI, where earlier processing stages (in BA3) are confined to signals that originate on our own body (remain 'private', Keysers et al, 2010; but see Lankinen et al, 2016 for claims that this may differ for haptic touch), while later processing stages (in BA2, SII, and probably BA1) may include representations of other people's somatic experiences (see also Schaefer et al, 2012). This mirroring aspect of SI is considered to be part of a broader neural network responsible for mirroring (e.g., Avikainen et al, 2002;Keysers and Gazzola, 2009;Molenberghs et al, 2012;Molnar-Szakasc and Uddin, 2013;Pineda, 2005;Ruby and Decety, 2001) and emotion recognition (e.g., Adolphs et al, 2000;Wood et al, 2016).…”

Infant brain responses to felt and observed touch of hands and feet: an MEG study

“…Second, research on body maps in the somatosensory cortex of human infants can shed light on their role in facilitating connections between self and other in the first months of life, with potential implications for studying social‐cognitive development and developmental disorders (Marshall & Meltzoff, ). A burgeoning literature with adults has examined the involvement of the somatosensory cortex in social perception (e.g., Gillmeister, Bowling, Rigato, & Banissy, ; Keysers, Kaas, & Gazzola, ; Lankinen et al., ), but far less work has been done with infants.…”

Consistency and similarity of MEG- and fMRI-signal time courses during movie viewing

“…Despite the apparent complexity and unrestrained nature of movies, consistent and synchronized brain activity patterns across movie viewers have been demonstrated with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; e.g. Hasson et al, 2004, Bartels and Zeki, 2004aBartels and Zeki, 2004b;J€ a€ askel€ ainen et al, 2008;Lahnakoski et al, 2012;Nummenmaa et al, 2012;Pamilo et al, 2012;Kauttonen et al, 2015), and more recently with magnetoencephalography (MEG; Betti et al, 2013;Lankinen et al, 2014Lankinen et al, , 2016Chang et al, 2015) and electroencephalography (EEG; Whittingstall et al, 2010;Dmochowski et al, 2012Dmochowski et al, , 2014Bridwell et al, 2015;Chang et al, 2015;Ki et al, 2016;Cohen and Parra, 2016).…”