Kilner James M, Neal Alice, Weiskopf Nikolaus, Friston Karl J, Frith Chris D
The Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, UCL, London, United Kingdom.
J Neurosci. 2009 Aug 12;29(32):10153-9. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2668-09.2009.
There is much current debate about the existence of mirror neurons in humans. To identify mirror neurons in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) of humans, we used a repetition suppression paradigm while measuring neural activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Subjects either executed or observed a series of actions. Here we show that in the IFG, responses were suppressed both when an executed action was followed by the same rather than a different observed action and when an observed action was followed by the same rather than a different executed action. This pattern of responses is consistent with that predicted by mirror neurons and is evidence of mirror neurons in the human IFG.
目前关于人类是否存在镜像神经元存在诸多争论。为了识别人类额下回（IFG）中的镜像神经元，我们采用了重复抑制范式，同时使用功能磁共振成像测量神经活动。受试者要么执行一系列动作，要么观察这些动作。我们在此表明，在额下回中，当执行一个动作后接着观察相同而非不同的动作时，以及当观察一个动作后接着执行相同而非不同的动作时，反应都会受到抑制。这种反应模式与镜像神经元所预测的一致，是人类额下回中存在镜像神经元的证据。
