Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health, University of Genoa, Genoa 16132, Italy.
IRCCS, Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, Genoa 16132, Italy.
Behav Neurol. 2022 Dec 30;2022:6487419. doi: 10.1155/2022/6487419. eCollection 2022.
In healthy people, motor resonance mechanisms are flexible to negative emotional contextual clues with greater motor resonance during the observation of a reach to grasp movement performed in an environment eliciting disgust. The link between emotion and motor control has become an interesting topic in Parkinson's disease (PD). Here, we aimed to study the response of the mirror neuron system, specifically motor resonance, to an emotion-enriched context in people with PD. Corticospinal excitability was recorded in a total of 44 participants, divided into two groups (23 PD patients and 21 healthy subjects). We recorded motor-evoked potentials from a muscle involved in the grasping movement while participants were watching the same reach-to-grasp movement embedded in surrounds with negative emotional valence, but different levels of arousal: sadness (low arousal) and disgust (high arousal). Basic motor resonance mechanisms were less efficient in PD than controls. Responsiveness to emotional contextual clues eliciting sadness was similar between PD and controls, whereas responsiveness to emotional contextual clues eliciting disgust was impaired in PD patients. Our findings show reduced motor resonance flexibility to the disgusting context, supporting the hypothesis that PD patients may have a deficit in "translating" an aversive motivational state into a physiologic response. The amygdala, which is implicated in the appraisal of fearful stimuli and response to threatening situations, might be implicated in this process.
在健康人群中，运动共鸣机制对负面情绪语境线索具有灵活性，在观察到在引起厌恶的环境中执行的伸手抓握运动时，运动共鸣会增强。情感与运动控制之间的联系已成为帕金森病（PD）中的一个有趣话题。在这里，我们旨在研究镜像神经元系统（特别是运动共鸣）对 PD 患者所处的富含情感的环境的反应。总共记录了 44 名参与者的皮质脊髓兴奋性，将他们分为两组（23 名 PD 患者和 21 名健康受试者）。当参与者观看嵌入具有负性情绪效价但不同唤醒水平（悲伤（低唤醒）和厌恶（高唤醒）的环境中的相同伸手抓握运动时，我们从参与抓握运动的肌肉中记录运动诱发电位。与对照组相比，PD 患者的基本运动共鸣机制效率较低。对引起悲伤的情绪语境线索的反应在 PD 和对照组之间相似，而对引起厌恶的情绪语境线索的反应在 PD 患者中受损。我们的研究结果表明，对令人厌恶的环境的运动共鸣灵活性降低，这支持了 PD 患者可能在“将厌恶的动机状态转化为生理反应”方面存在缺陷的假设。杏仁核参与了对恐惧刺激的评估和对威胁情况的反应，可能涉及到这个过程。
