Iriki A, Tanaka M, Iwamura Y
Department of Physiology, Toho University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Neuroreport. 1996 Oct 2;7(14):2325-30. doi: 10.1097/00001756-199610020-00010.
A tool is an extension of the hand in both a physical and a perceptual sense. The presence of body schemata has been postulated as the basis of the perceptual assimilation of tool and hand. We trained macaque monkeys to retrieve distant objects using a rake, and neuronal activity was recorded in the caudal postcentral gyrus where the somatosensory and visual signals converge. There we found a large number of bimodal neurones which appeared to code the schema of the hand. During tool use, their visual receptive fields were altered to include the entire length of the rake or to cover the expanded accessible space. These findings may represent neural correlates of the modified schema of the hand in which the tool was incorporated.
从物理和感知意义上来说，工具都是手的延伸。身体图式的存在被假定为工具与手进行感知同化的基础。我们训练猕猴使用耙子获取远处的物体，并在体感和视觉信号汇聚的中央后回尾侧记录神经元活动。在那里，我们发现了大量似乎对手的图式进行编码的双峰神经元。在使用工具的过程中，它们的视觉感受野发生了改变，将耙子的全长纳入其中，或者覆盖扩大后的可触及空间。这些发现可能代表了包含工具的手的修改图式的神经关联。
