Department of Rehabilitation, Kiyose Rehabilitation Hospital, 3-3-33 Takeoka, Kiyose, Tokyo 204-0023, Japan.
Neurosci Lett. 2011 Oct 3;503(2):100-4. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2011.08.016. Epub 2011 Aug 17.
The present study examined the effects of the perspective of movement presented for imitation in healthy volunteers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess the magnitude and distribution of elicited brain activity. We sought to identify the pattern of brain activity associated with the performance of finger imitation tasks under four different imitation conditions. Video presentations of a hand and forearm performing random sequential contact between different fingers and the thumb were presented for imitation, while fMRI was recorded. The four types of model for imitation were: a hand and forearm pointing away from the subject, as if the subject were looking at their own limb (first-person perspective), from both anatomical (a right hand to be imitated by the subject's own right hand) and specular (a mirror image or "left" hand to be imitated by the subject's right hand) perspectives; and a hand/forearm pointing toward the subject, as if it was the hand of another person facing the subject (third-person perspective), from both anatomical (the opposite person's right hand) and specular (the opposite person's left hand) perspectives. In addition, participants completed a motor control task. The results revealed a significant difference in the magnitude of brain activation between the first- and third-person perspective conditions, suggesting that subjects used the first-person imitation model as a substitute for internal self-representation, thus requiring less effort. The first-person perspective anatomical model activated only the right posterior insula, recruiting significantly fewer brain regions than the other model types, compared with the control condition. These findings suggest that first-person anatomical perspective models may be optimal for ease of imitation in motor learning.
本研究使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来评估诱发大脑活动的幅度和分布，以检查健康志愿者在模仿中呈现的运动视角的影响。我们试图确定与在四种不同模仿条件下执行手指模仿任务相关的大脑活动模式。呈现手和前臂在不同手指和拇指之间进行随机顺序接触的视频演示，以进行模仿，并同时记录 fMRI。模仿的四种模型类型是：手和前臂指向远离主体的方向，就像主体正在看自己的肢体一样（第一人称视角），从解剖学（要模仿主体自己的右手的右手）和镜像（镜像或“左手”要模仿主体的右手）的角度；以及指向主体的手/前臂，就像它是面对主体的另一个人的手（第三人称视角），从解剖学（对面人的右手）和镜像（对面人的左手）的角度。此外，参与者完成了一项运动控制任务。结果表明，在大脑激活幅度方面，第一人称视角和第三人称视角条件之间存在显著差异，这表明主体使用第一人称模仿模型作为内部自我表现的替代，因此需要较少的努力。与其他模型类型相比，第一人称解剖学视角模型仅激活右侧后岛，激活的大脑区域明显少于其他模型类型，与对照条件相比。这些发现表明，第一人称解剖学视角模型可能是运动学习中易于模仿的最佳选择。
