Down Syndrome Research Foundation, MEG Laboratory, Burnaby, British Columbia.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2010 Jan;31(1):160-71. doi: 10.1002/hbm.20853.
How humans understand the actions and intentions of others remains poorly understood. Here we report the results of a magnetoencephalography (MEG) experiment to determine the temporal dynamics and spatial distribution of brain regions activated during execution and observation of a reach to grasp motion using real world stimuli. We show that although both conditions activate similar brain areas, there are distinct differences in the timing, pattern and location of activation. Specifically, observation of motion revealed a right hemisphere dominance with activation involving a network of regions that include frontal, temporal and parietal areas. In addition, the latencies of activation showed a task specific pattern. During movement execution, the earliest activation was observed in the left premotor and somatosensory regions, followed closely by left primary motor and STG at the time of movement onset. During observation, there was a shift in the timing of activation with the earliest activity occurring in the right temporal region followed by activity in the left motor areas. Activity within these areas was also characterized by a shift to a lower frequency in comparison with action execution. These results add to the growing body of evidence indicating a complex interaction within a distributed network involving motor and nonmotor regions during observation of real actions.
人类如何理解他人的行为和意图仍未被很好地理解。在这里，我们报告了一项脑磁图（MEG）实验的结果，该实验旨在确定在使用真实刺激进行伸手抓握运动的执行和观察过程中，大脑区域被激活的时间动态和空间分布。我们发现，尽管两种情况都激活了相似的大脑区域，但在激活的时间、模式和位置上存在明显的差异。具体来说，观察运动揭示了右半球优势，激活涉及包括额、颞和顶叶区域的网络。此外，激活的潜伏期表现出特定于任务的模式。在运动执行期间，最早的激活出现在左侧运动前区和体感区，紧随其后的是运动起始时左侧初级运动区和颞上回。在观察过程中，激活的时间发生了变化，最早的活动出现在右侧颞区，然后是左侧运动区的活动。与动作执行相比，这些区域的活动还表现出向较低频率的转移。这些结果增加了越来越多的证据，表明在观察真实动作时，一个涉及运动和非运动区域的分布式网络中存在复杂的相互作用。
