Rizzolatti Giacomo, Fogassi Leonardo
Department of Neuroscience, University of Parma, , via Volturno 39/E, Parma 43100, Italy.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2014 Apr 28;369(1644):20130420. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2013.0420. Print 2014.
Mirror neurons are a specific type of visuomotor neuron that discharge both when a monkey executes a motor act and when it observes a similar motor act performed by another individual. In this article, we review first the basic properties of these neurons. We then describe visual features recently investigated which indicate that, besides encoding the goal of motor acts, mirror neurons are modulated by location in space of the observed motor acts, by the perspective from which the others' motor acts are seen, and by the value associated with the object on which others' motor acts are performed. In the last part of this article, we discuss the role of the mirror mechanism in planning actions and in understanding the intention underlying the others' motor acts. We also review some human studies suggesting that motor intention in humans may rely, as in the monkey, on the mirror mechanism.
镜像神经元是一种特殊类型的视觉运动神经元，当猴子执行一个运动动作时以及当它观察到另一个个体执行类似的运动动作时，这类神经元都会放电。在本文中，我们首先回顾这些神经元的基本特性。然后我们描述最近研究的视觉特征，这些特征表明，除了编码运动动作的目标外，镜像神经元还受到所观察到的运动动作在空间中的位置、观察他人运动动作的视角以及与他人执行运动动作的对象相关联的值的调节。在本文的最后部分，我们讨论镜像机制在动作规划以及理解他人运动动作背后意图中的作用。我们还回顾了一些人类研究，这些研究表明人类的运动意图可能像猴子一样依赖于镜像机制。
