Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2022 Nov;43(16):4901-4913. doi: 10.1002/hbm.26036. Epub 2022 Jul 30.
Previous studies have struggled to determine the relationship between mirror neuron brain regions and two distinct "action understanding" processes: identifying actions and identifying the intentions underlying those actions. This may be because the identification of intentions from others' actions requires an initial action identification process. Disruptive transcranial magnetic stimulation was administered to left inferior frontal gyrus (lIFG) during a novel cognitive task to determine which of these "action understanding" processes is subserved by mirror neuron brain regions. Participants identified either the actions performed by observed hand actions or the intentions underlying those actions. The extent to which intention identification was disrupted by lIFG (vs. control site) stimulation was dependent on the level of disruption to action identification. We subsequently performed functional magnetic resonance imaging during the same task. During action identification, responses were widespread within mirror neuron areas including lIFG and inferior parietal lobule. However, no independent responses were found in mirror neuron brain regions during intention identification. Instead, responses occurred in brain regions associated with two distinct mentalizing localizer tasks. This supports an account in which mirror neuron brain regions are involved in an initial action identification process, but the subsequent identification of intentions requires additional processing in mentalizing brain regions.
先前的研究一直难以确定镜像神经元脑区与两种截然不同的“动作理解”过程之间的关系：识别动作和识别这些动作背后的意图。这可能是因为从他人的动作中识别意图需要一个初始的动作识别过程。在一项新的认知任务中，给予左额下回（lIFG）阻断性经颅磁刺激，以确定镜像神经元脑区所支持的是哪种“动作理解”过程。参与者识别观察到手部动作所执行的动作或这些动作背后的意图。lIFG（与对照部位相比）刺激对意图识别的干扰程度取决于对动作识别的干扰程度。随后，我们在相同的任务中进行了功能磁共振成像。在动作识别过程中，反应在镜像神经元区域（包括 lIFG 和下顶叶）广泛分布。然而，在意图识别过程中没有发现镜像神经元脑区的独立反应。相反，反应发生在与两个不同心理化定位任务相关的脑区。这支持了一种解释，即镜像神经元脑区参与了初始的动作识别过程，但随后对意图的识别需要在心理化脑区进行额外的处理。
