Rizzolatti G, Fadiga L, Gallese V, Fogassi L
Istituto di Fisiologia Umana, Università di Parma, Italy.
Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 1996 Mar;3(2):131-41. doi: 10.1016/0926-6410(95)00038-0.
In area F5 of the monkey premotor cortex there are neurons that discharge both when the monkey performs an action and when he observes a similar action made by another monkey or by the experimenter. We report here some of the properties of these 'mirror' neurons and we propose that their activity 'represents' the observed action. We posit, then, that this motor representation is at the basis of the understanding of motor events. Finally, on the basis of some recent data showing that, in man, the observation of motor actions activate the posterior part of inferior frontal gyrus, we suggest that the development of the lateral verbal communication system in man derives from a more ancient communication system based on recognition of hand and face gestures.
在猴子的运动前区皮质F5区域，存在这样一些神经元，当猴子执行某个动作时它们会放电，而当它观察到另一只猴子或实验者做出类似动作时，这些神经元也会放电。我们在此报告这些“镜像”神经元的一些特性，并提出它们的活动“表征”了所观察到的动作。然后我们假定，这种运动表征是理解运动事件的基础。最后，基于最近的一些数据表明，在人类中，观察运动动作会激活额下回后部，我们认为人类外侧言语交流系统的发展源自一个更古老的基于对手部和面部手势识别的交流系统。
