The University of Queensland, Queensland Brain Institute, School of Psychology, Qld 4072, Australia.
Neuroimage. 2012 Jan 2;59(1):608-15. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.07.080. Epub 2011 Aug 5.
The role of the mirror system in action understanding has been widely debated. Some authors have suggested that the mirror system plays an important role in action understanding (Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia, 2010), whereas others have claimed that direct evidence to support this view is lacking (Hickok, 2009). If mirror neurons have an active role in action understanding rather than passive visuomotor transformation during action observation, they should respond differently to the observation of actions depending on the intentions of the observer. In this fMRI study, twenty participants observed identical actions under different instruction contexts. The task was either to understand the actions, identify the physical features of the actions, or passively observe the actions. A multi-voxel pattern analysis revealed unique patterns of activation in ventral premotor cortex and inferior parietal lobule across the different contexts. The results suggest that ventral premotor and inferior parietal areas respond differently to observed actions depending on the mindset of the observer. This is consistent with the view that these regions do not merely process observed actions passively, but play an active role in action understanding.
镜像系统在动作理解中的作用一直存在广泛争议。一些作者认为镜像系统在动作理解中起着重要作用（Rizzolatti 和 Sinigaglia，2010），而另一些作者则声称缺乏支持这种观点的直接证据（Hickok，2009）。如果镜像神经元在动作观察期间的主动参与动作理解，而不是被动的运动转换，那么它们应该根据观察者的意图对动作观察做出不同的反应。在这项 fMRI 研究中，二十名参与者在不同的指令背景下观察相同的动作。任务要么是理解动作，识别动作的物理特征，要么是被动观察动作。多体素模式分析显示，腹侧运动前皮层和下顶叶皮层在不同的背景下呈现出独特的激活模式。结果表明，腹侧运动前区和下顶叶区根据观察者的心态对观察到的动作做出不同的反应。这与这些区域不仅被动地处理观察到的动作，而且在动作理解中发挥主动作用的观点一致。
