State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2024 Oct 15;19(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsae068.
Mirror neurons (MNs) represent a class of neurons that are activated when performing or observing the same action. Given their role in social cognition and previous research in patients with psychiatric disorders, we proposed that the human MN system (MNS) might display different pathways for social and non-social actions. To examine this hypothesis, we conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis of 174 published human functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. Our findings confirmed the proposed hypothesis. Our results demonstrated that the non-social MN pathway exhibited a more classical pattern of frontoparietal activation, whereas the social MN pathway was activated less in the parietal lobe but more in the frontal lobe, limbic lobe, and sublobar regions. Additionally, our findings revealed a modulatory role of the effector (i.e. face and hands) within this framework: some areas exhibited effector-independent activation, while others did not. This novel subdivision provides valuable theoretical support for further investigations into the neural mechanisms underlying the MNS and its related disorders.
镜像神经元 (MNs) 是一类在执行或观察相同动作时被激活的神经元。鉴于它们在社会认知中的作用以及在精神障碍患者中的先前研究，我们提出人类 MN 系统 (MNS) 可能显示出用于社交和非社交动作的不同途径。为了检验这一假设，我们对 174 项已发表的人类功能磁共振成像研究进行了综合荟萃分析。我们的研究结果证实了该假设。我们的结果表明，非社交 MN 途径表现出更经典的额顶叶激活模式，而社交 MN 途径在顶叶的激活较少，但在前额叶、边缘叶和亚叶区域的激活较多。此外，我们的研究结果揭示了该框架内效应器（即脸和手）的调节作用：一些区域表现出与效应器无关的激活，而另一些区域则没有。这种新的细分提供了有价值的理论支持，有助于进一步研究 MNS 及其相关障碍的神经机制。
