Syrov Nikolay, Bredikhin Dimitri, Yakovlev Lev, Miroshnikov Andrei, Kaplan Alexander
Baltic Center for Artificial Intelligence and Neurotechnology, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad, Russia.
V. Zelman Center for Neurobiology and Brain Restoration, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2022 Sep 2;16:973229. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.973229. eCollection 2022.
The action observation networks (AON) (or the mirror neuron system) are the neural underpinnings of visuomotor integration and play an important role in motor control. Besides, one of the main functions of the human mirror neuron system is recognition of observed actions and the prediction of its outcome through the comparison with the internal mental motor representation. Previous studies focused on the human mirror neurons (MNs) activation during object-oriented movements observation, therefore intransitive movements observation effects on MNs activity remains relatively little-studied. Moreover, the dependence of MNs activation on the biomechanical characteristics of observed movement and their biological plausibility remained highly underexplored. In this study we proposed that naturalness of observed intransitive movement can modulate the MNs activity. Event-related desynchronization (ERD) of sensorimotor electroencephalography (EEG) rhythms, N400 event-related potentials (ERPs) component and corticospinal excitability were investigated in twenty healthy volunteers during observation of simple non-transitive finger flexion that might be either biomechanically natural or unnatural when finger wriggled out toward the dorsal side of palm. We showed that both natural and unnatural movements caused mu/beta-desynchronization, which gradually increased during the flexion phase and returned to baseline while observation of extension. Desynchronization of the mu-rhythm was significantly higher during observation of the natural movements. At the same time, beta-rhythm was not found to be sensitive to the action naturalness. Also, observation of unnatural movements caused an increased amplitude of the N400 component registered in the centro-parietal regions. We suggest that the sensitivity of N400 to intransitive action observation with no explicit semantic context might imply the broader role of N400 sources within AON. Surprisingly, no changes in corticospinal excitability were found. This lack of excitability modulation by action observation could be related with dependence of the M1 activity on the observed movement phase.
动作观察网络(AON)(或镜像神经元系统)是视觉运动整合的神经基础,在运动控制中发挥着重要作用。此外,人类镜像神经元系统的主要功能之一是通过与内部心理运动表征进行比较来识别观察到的动作及其结果预测。以往的研究主要关注面向对象运动观察期间人类镜像神经元(MNs)的激活,因此,非传递性运动观察对MNs活动的影响研究相对较少。此外,MNs激活对观察到的运动生物力学特征的依赖性及其生物学合理性仍未得到充分探索。在本研究中,我们提出观察到的非传递性运动的自然程度可以调节MNs的活动。在20名健康志愿者观察简单的非传递性手指屈曲过程中,研究了感觉运动脑电图(EEG)节律的事件相关去同步化(ERD)、N400事件相关电位(ERP)成分和皮质脊髓兴奋性,当手指向手掌背侧扭动时,这种手指屈曲在生物力学上可能是自然的,也可能是不自然的。我们发现,自然和不自然的运动都会引起μ/β去同步化,在屈曲阶段逐渐增加,在观察伸展时恢复到基线水平。在观察自然运动期间,μ节律的去同步化明显更高。同时,未发现β节律对动作自然程度敏感。此外,观察不自然的运动导致中央顶叶区域记录的N400成分振幅增加。我们认为,N400对没有明确语义背景的非传递性动作观察的敏感性可能意味着N400源在AON中具有更广泛的作用。令人惊讶的是,未发现皮质脊髓兴奋性有变化。这种动作观察缺乏兴奋性调制可能与M1活动对观察到的运动阶段的依赖性有关。