Dipartimento di Psicologia, Universita di Bologna, AlmaMater Studiorum,
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2011 Jun;6(3):257-9. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsr004.
Neurophysiological and imaging studies suggest that the inferior frontal cortex (IFC) implements a mechanism that matches perceived actions to one's motor representation of similar actions (mirror mechanism) and recent lesion studies have also established that IFC is critical for action perception. However, to date causative evidence that action perception requires activation within the same populations of IFC neurons involved in action execution is lacking. In this issue, Cattaneo and colleagues provide the first direct evidence that mirror mechanisms in IFC influence action perception. We discuss the implications of these findings for the understanding of the functional role of mirror mechanisms.
神经生理学和影像学研究表明，下额前皮质（IFC）实现了一种将感知到的动作与自身类似动作的运动表象相匹配的机制（镜像机制），最近的损伤研究也证实了 IFC 对于动作感知至关重要。然而，迄今为止，还缺乏因果证据表明，动作感知需要在参与动作执行的相同 IFC 神经元群体中激活。在本期中，Cattaneo 及其同事提供了第一个直接证据，表明 IFC 中的镜像机制会影响动作感知。我们讨论了这些发现对理解镜像机制的功能作用的影响。
