The University of Queensland, Queensland Brain Institute & School of Psychology, Queensland 4072, Australia.
Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2012 Jan;36(1):341-9. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2011.07.004. Epub 2011 Jul 18.
Mirror neurons in macaque area F5 fire when an animal performs an action, such as a mouth or limb movement, and also when the animal passively observes an identical or similar action performed by another individual. Brain-imaging studies in humans conducted over the last 20 years have repeatedly attempted to reveal analogous brain regions with mirror properties in humans, with broad and often speculative claims about their functional significance across a range of cognitive domains, from language to social cognition. Despite such concerted efforts, the likely neural substrates of these mirror regions have remained controversial, and indeed the very existence of a distinct subcategory of human neurons with mirroring properties has been questioned. Here we used activation likelihood estimation (ALE), to provide a quantitative index of the consistency of patterns of fMRI activity measured in human studies of action observation and action execution. From an initial sample of more than 300 published works, data from 125 papers met our strict inclusion and exclusion criteria. The analysis revealed 14 separate clusters in which activation has been consistently attributed to brain regions with mirror properties, encompassing 9 different Brodmann areas. These clusters were located in areas purported to show mirroring properties in the macaque, such as the inferior parietal lobule, inferior frontal gyrus and the adjacent ventral premotor cortex, but surprisingly also in regions such as the primary visual cortex, cerebellum and parts of the limbic system. Our findings suggest a core network of human brain regions that possess mirror properties associated with action observation and execution, with additional areas recruited during tasks that engage non-motor functions, such as auditory, somatosensory and affective components.
猴 F5 区的镜像神经元在动物执行动作（如口部或肢体运动）时会放电，当动物被动观察另一个个体执行相同或相似的动作时也会放电。在过去的 20 年中，对人类进行的大脑成像研究反复试图揭示具有镜像特性的类似大脑区域，这些区域在语言到社会认知等一系列认知领域具有广泛而通常是推测性的功能意义。尽管做出了如此一致的努力，但这些镜像区域的可能神经基质仍然存在争议，实际上，具有镜像特性的人类神经元的独特亚类的存在本身就受到了质疑。在这里，我们使用激活似然估计（ALE），为人类动作观察和动作执行研究中测量的 fMRI 活动模式的一致性提供了一个定量指标。从最初的 300 多篇已发表的作品中，有 125 篇论文的数据符合我们严格的纳入和排除标准。该分析揭示了 14 个单独的簇，在这些簇中，激活被一致归因于具有镜像特性的脑区，涵盖了 9 个不同的布罗德曼区。这些簇位于被认为在猕猴中具有镜像特性的区域，如顶下小叶、额下回和相邻的腹侧运动前皮质，但令人惊讶的是，也位于初级视觉皮质、小脑和边缘系统的部分区域。我们的研究结果表明，人类大脑具有镜像特性的核心区域网络与动作观察和执行有关，在涉及非运动功能（如听觉、躯体感觉和情感成分）的任务中，还会招募额外的区域。
