Bek Judith, Gowen Emma, Vogt Stefan, Crawford Trevor, Poliakoff Ellen
Division of Neuroscience and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, University of Manchester, UK.
Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, UK.
J Neuropsychol. 2018 Jun;12(2):298-311. doi: 10.1111/jnp.12133. Epub 2017 Sep 11.
Observation of movement activates the observer's own motor system, influencing the performance of actions and facilitating social interaction. This motor resonance is demonstrated behaviourally through visuomotor priming, whereby response latencies are influenced by the compatibility between an intended action and an observed (task-irrelevant) action. The impact of movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD) on motor resonance is unclear, as previous studies of visuomotor priming have not separated imitative compatibility (specific to human movement) from general stimulus-response compatibility effects. We examined visuomotor priming in 23 participants with mild-to-moderate PD and 24 healthy older adults, using a task that pitted imitative compatibility against general stimulus-response compatibility. Participants made a key press after observing a task-irrelevant moving human finger or rectangle that was either compatible or incompatible with their response. Imitative compatibility effects, rather than general stimulus-response compatibility effects, were found specifically for the human finger. Moreover, imitative compatibility effects did not differ between groups, indicating intact motor resonance in the PD group. These findings constitute the first unambiguous demonstration of imitative priming in both PD and healthy ageing, and have implications for therapeutic techniques to facilitate action, as well as the understanding of social cognition in PD.
对动作的观察会激活观察者自身的运动系统，影响动作的执行并促进社交互动。这种运动共鸣通过视运动启动在行为上得到证明，即反应潜伏期受预期动作与观察到的（与任务无关的）动作之间的兼容性影响。诸如帕金森病（PD）等运动障碍对运动共鸣的影响尚不清楚，因为先前对视运动启动的研究并未将模仿兼容性（特定于人类动作）与一般刺激 - 反应兼容性效应区分开来。我们使用一项将模仿兼容性与一般刺激 - 反应兼容性相比较的任务，对23名轻度至中度PD患者和24名健康老年人进行了视运动启动研究。参与者在观察与任务无关的移动的人类手指或矩形后按键，该手指或矩形与他们的反应要么兼容要么不兼容。我们发现，模仿兼容性效应而非一般刺激 - 反应兼容性效应，专门针对人类手指存在。此外，两组之间的模仿兼容性效应没有差异，表明PD组的运动共鸣未受损。这些发现首次明确证明了PD患者和健康老年人中均存在模仿启动现象，这对于促进动作的治疗技术以及对PD患者社会认知的理解具有重要意义。
