The Psychology Department, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Cereb Cortex. 2018 Mar 1;28(3):1039-1048. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhx013.
Embodied theories of cognition emphasize the central role of sensorimotor transformations in the representation of others' actions. Support for these theories is derived from the discovery of the mirror neuron system (MNS) in primates, from noninvasive techniques in humans, and from a limited number of intracranial studies. To understand the neural dynamics of the human MNS, more studies with precise spatial and temporal resolutions are essential. We used electrocorticography to define activation patterns in sensorimotor, parietal and/or frontal neuronal populations, during a viewing and grasping task. Our results show robust high gamma activation for both conditions in classic MNS sites. Furthermore, we provide novel evidence for 2 different populations of neurons: sites that were only active for viewing and grasping ("pure mirroring") and sites that were also active between viewing and grasping, and perhaps serve a more general attentional role. Lastly, a subgroup of parietal electrodes showed earlier peaks than all other regions. These results highlight the complexity of spatial-temporal patterns within the MNS and provide a critical link between single-unit research in monkeys and noninvasive techniques in human.
具身认知理论强调了感觉运动转换在表示他人行为中的核心作用。这些理论的支持来自于灵长类动物中镜像神经元系统（MNS）的发现、来自于人类的非侵入性技术以及来自于少数颅内研究。为了理解人类 MNS 的神经动力学，需要更多具有精确时空分辨率的研究。我们使用皮层脑电图来定义在观看和抓取任务期间，感觉运动、顶叶和/或额叶神经元群体中的激活模式。我们的结果显示，在经典的 MNS 部位，两种情况下都有强大的高伽马激活。此外，我们还提供了两个不同神经元群体的新证据：仅在观看和抓取时活跃的部位（“纯镜像”）和在观看和抓取之间也活跃的部位，并且可能具有更一般的注意力作用。最后，一小部分顶叶电极的峰值出现时间早于其他所有区域。这些结果突出了 MNS 内部空间-时间模式的复杂性，并在猴子的单细胞研究和人类的非侵入性技术之间提供了关键联系。
