Pomelova Ekaterina, Feurra Matteo, Nikulin Vadim, Grankina Alena, Solodkov Roman, Banjevich Tamara, Blagovechtchenski Evgeny
Centre for Cognition and Decision Making, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, HSE University, Moscow, Russia.
Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2025 Sep 11;19:1650152. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1650152. eCollection 2025.
The mirror neuron system (MNS) activates during the performance of an action and during the observation of the same action being performed by another. At the motor output level, MNS activation manifests as motor resonance, or a muscle-specific increase in corticospinal excitability during action observation. This study focuses on how and to what extent motor learning alters the initial mirror response and whether the rate of motor learning is associated with pretraining or post-training levels of mirror response. The study involved 23 healthy adults aged 22.7 years on average. The experiment consisted of six sessions. On the first and last days, a transcranial magnetic stimulation session was performed to assess the putative activity of mirror neurons, as reflected in the level of motor-evoked potential facilitation during action observation under various conditions. From the second to the fifth sessions (four sessions), motor learning was performed, as represented in the form of a serial reaction time (SRT) task.
We observed a statistically significant decrease in reaction time during the process of learning within the SRT task and motor facilitation during action observation, thus reflecting putative mirror neuron activity. We found a significant correlation between the learning speed of the non-dominant hand and mirror neuron activation in the dominant hemisphere during the observation of button presses and pinch gestures.
The MNS excitability is not a predictor of motor learning, but motor learning is reflected in the characteristics of the MNS.
镜像神经元系统（MNS）在执行动作以及观察他人执行相同动作时会被激活。在运动输出层面，MNS激活表现为运动共振，即动作观察期间皮质脊髓兴奋性的肌肉特异性增加。本研究聚焦于运动学习如何以及在多大程度上改变初始镜像反应，以及运动学习速率是否与训练前或训练后的镜像反应水平相关。该研究纳入了23名平均年龄为22.7岁的健康成年人。实验包括六个阶段。在第一天和最后一天，进行了经颅磁刺激实验，以评估镜像神经元的假定活动，这在不同条件下动作观察期间运动诱发电位促进水平中有所体现。从第二天到第五天（共四个阶段），进行了运动学习，形式为序列反应时（SRT）任务。
我们观察到在SRT任务学习过程中反应时间有统计学意义的下降，以及动作观察期间的运动促进，从而反映了假定的镜像神经元活动。我们发现，在观察按键和捏合手势时，非优势手的学习速度与优势半球的镜像神经元激活之间存在显著相关性。
MNS兴奋性不是运动学习的预测指标，但运动学习反映在MNS的特征中。
