Motion Class Dependency in Observers' Motor Areas Revealed by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Abstract

Human and animal data suggest that the mere observation of biological motion activates those premotor areas that also underlie the initiation of the same motion. However, data also indicate that the human premotor cortex (PM), in contrast to the monkey PM, responds not only to the observation of goal-directed (transitive) motion but also to intransitive motion. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to test this hypothesis directly. Participants were presented cycles of intransitive motion specified as belonging to the distal (fingers and mouth), proximal (knee, ankle, elbow, and wrist), or axial (trunk and shoulder) motion class. Attention to motion was behaviorally tested by a forced-choice task on motion acceleration and deceleration. Results revealed extended PM activation for each motion condition. However, direct contrasts showed that the most significant activations were elicited in ventrolateral PM by distal motion, in dorsolateral PM by proximal motion, and medial PM (supplementary motor area) by axial motion. Findings confirm observed intransitive motions to engage premotor areas along a gross-scaled somatotopy.

Cortical activation during executed, imagined, observed, and passive wrist movements in healthy volunteers and stroke patients

“…While frequently ventral premotor cortices have been associated with movement observation (Decety and Grèzes, 1999), the presently observed more dorsal premotor activations have been reported before particularly for the observation of wrist and hand movements (Buccino et al, 2001;Morin and Grezes, 2008;Sakreida et al, 2005). Interestingly, the presently observed areas were part of a network showing increased activation in response to rehabilitation using action observation (Ertelt et al, 2007).…”

Faces, Bodies, Social Vision as Agent Vision, and Social Consciousness

“…Another cortical area, near the middle occipital gyrus has come to the foreground because it appeared selectively activated during presentation of body stimuli and was named the extrastriate body area(EBA) (Downing, Jiang, Shuman, & Kanwisher, 2001;Grossman & Blake, 2002;Peelen & Downing, 2005;Sakreida, Schubotz, Wolfensteller, & von Cramon, 2005;Spiridon, Fischl, & Kanwisher, 2006). More recently, however, it has been shown that an area in the midfusiform cortex is also selectively activated in response to whole bodies, and this led the authors to propose a division of the midfusiform cortex in a face vs. body sensitive set of voxels(fusiform body area, FBA) (Peelen & Downing, 2005;Schwarzlose, Baker, & Kanwisher, 2005;Spiridon et al, 2006).…”

Experience-based priming of body parts: A study of action imitation

“…The matching of observed and executed movement types that occurs in automatic imitation is not reducible to the effects of either simple or complex spatial compatibility (Press et al, in press; see also Brass et al, 2001;Bertenthal et al, 2006). Recent studies using neurological measures have shown that the human mirror neuron system is sensitive, not only to movement type, but to effector type: it responds differentially to the observation of different body parts in motion (Buccino et al, 2001;Sakreida et al, 2005;Wheaton et al, 2001;Wheaton et al, 2004). Buccino et al (2001) and Wheaton et al (2004) used neuroimaging to demonstrate that hand, foot and mouth actions selectively activate distinct regions of human ventral premotor and parietal cortex.…”

“…These results, which were replicated in the pre-training test in Experiment 2, add substantial weight to the hypothesis that the mirror neuron system mediates overt behavioral imitation. Recent neuroimaging studies have shown that the neural response of the human mirror neuron system is sensitive to different body parts with which an observed action can be effected (Buccino et al, 2001;Sakreida et al, 2005;Wheaton et al, 2001;Wheaton et al, 2004). Buccino et al (2001) and Wheaton et al (2004) demonstrated that hand, foot and mouth actions selectively activate distinct regions of human ventral premotor and parietal cortex, which correspond 23 to the regions involved in action execution with these effectors.…”