di Pellegrino G, Fadiga L, Fogassi L, Gallese V, Rizzolatti G
Istituto di Fisiologia Umana, Universita di Parma, Italy.
Exp Brain Res. 1992;91(1):176-80. doi: 10.1007/BF00230027.
Neurons of the rostral part of inferior premotor cortex of the monkey discharge during goal-directed hand movements such as grasping, holding, and tearing. We report here that many of these neurons become active also when the monkey observes specific, meaningful hand movements performed by the experimenters. The effective experimenters' movements include among others placing or retrieving a piece of food from a table, grasping food from another experimenter's hand, and manipulating objects. There is always a clear link between the effective observed movement and that executed by the monkey and, often, only movements of the experimenter identical to those controlled by a given neuron are able to activate it. These findings indicate that premotor neurons can retrieve movements not only on the basis of stimulus characteristics, as previously described, but also on the basis of the meaning of the observed actions.
猴子下运动前皮质嘴侧部的神经元在诸如抓握、握持和撕扯等目标导向性手部动作期间会放电。我们在此报告，当猴子观察实验者执行特定的、有意义的手部动作时，这些神经元中的许多也会变得活跃。有效的实验者动作包括从桌子上放置或取回一块食物、从另一位实验者手中抓取食物以及操纵物体等。在观察到的有效动作与猴子执行的动作之间始终存在明确的联系，而且通常只有与给定神经元所控制的动作相同的实验者动作才能激活该神经元。这些发现表明，运动前神经元不仅可以如先前所述基于刺激特征来重现动作，还可以基于所观察动作的意义来重现动作。
