Maravita Angelo, Romano Daniele
Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
Handb Clin Neurol. 2018;151:481-498. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-444-63622-5.00025-5.
The ability to craft and use tools is a crucial skill of human beings, distinguishing humans from all other species. Humans show a unique capacity to create novel, technologically advanced devices and represent physical causality using tools. In the present chapter we review the effect of tool use in changing body-space multisensory integration and body representation and the fundamental contribution of the parietal lobe to the neural underpinnings of tool use. In the final section we briefly introduce the effect of parietal brain damage on tool use. At the beginning of 20th century, a crucial role for the left parietal lobe for a proper control of gestures, including the pantomimed and actual use of tools, was already clear. Actual available evidence supports a critical role of the parietal lobe for both the lower-level multisensory integration of somatosensory and visual input necessary for the interactions between body, tools, and external objects, and for the representation of the mechanical and conceptual dynamics of tool use. Parietal regions, rather than merely representing the prototypical use of a tool, would be critical to understand the general mechanical interactions of the tool with the environment. The increase of knowledge about such brain mechanisms is of utmost relevance in the present times, characterized by the development of more and more sophisticated technological tools, such as functional prostheses, robotic interfaces, and virtual-reality devices.
制造和使用工具的能力是人类的一项关键技能，它将人类与所有其他物种区分开来。人类展现出独特的能力，能够创造新颖的、技术先进的设备，并使用工具来呈现物理因果关系。在本章中，我们回顾了工具使用对改变身体空间多感官整合和身体表征的影响，以及顶叶对工具使用神经基础的重要贡献。在最后一部分，我们简要介绍顶叶脑损伤对工具使用的影响。在20世纪初，左顶叶对于正确控制手势（包括模仿和实际使用工具）的关键作用就已经很明确了。现有证据支持顶叶在身体、工具和外部物体之间相互作用所需的体感和视觉输入的低级多感官整合，以及在工具使用的机械和概念动态表征方面都起着关键作用。顶叶区域不仅仅是表征工具的典型使用方式，对于理解工具与环境的一般机械相互作用也至关重要。在当今时代，随着越来越复杂的技术工具（如功能性假肢、机器人接口和虚拟现实设备）的发展，了解此类脑机制的知识增长具有极其重要的意义。
