Neurons in the Macaque Dorsal Premotor Cortex Respond to Execution and Observation of Actions.
Neurons in the Macaque Dorsal Premotor Cortex Respond to Execution and Observation of Actions.
复制标题
猕猴背侧前运动皮层中的神经元对动作的执行和观察做出反应。
作者：
Vassilis Papadourakis;V. Raos
我们在猕猴大脑的背侧运动前皮质(PMD)中识别出在执行和观察伸手抓住动作时做出反应的神经元，从而满足镜像神经元(MIRN)标准。在观察过程中，PMD区和F5区的抓握选择性MirN的百分比相当，两区的选择性指数相似。在执行过程中，F5-MirN比PMD-Mirns对GRIP具有更高的选择性，这反映在F5的选择性指数高于PMD。在这两种情况下，PMD都比F5更早地显示与握力相关的信息。在这两个区域，表现出一致的视觉和运动选择性的神经元的数量与偶然预期的没有区别。然而，PMD和F5神经元集合都提供了观察-执行匹配，这表明这种一致性可能是以一种分布的方式跨种群中的选择性元素实现的。此外，表征相似性分析表明，在观察和执行过程中，PMD和F5中的GRIP编码是相似的。我们的研究提供了PMD在观察前肢运动时镜像活动的直接证据，并提示PMD是MIRN回路的一个节点。
We identified neurons in dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) of the macaque brain that respond during execution and observation of reaching-to-grasp actions, thus fulfilling the mirror neuron (MirN) criterion. During observation, the percentage of grip-selective MirNs in PMd and area F5 were comparable, and the selectivity indices in the two areas were similar. During execution, F5-MirNs were more selective than PMd-MirNs for grip, which was reflected in the higher selectivity indices in F5 than in PMd. PMd displayed grip-related information earlier than F5 during both conditions. In both areas, the number of neurons exhibiting congruent visual and motor selectivity did not differ from that expected by chance. However, both the PMd and F5 neuronal ensembles provided observation-execution matching, suggesting that the congruency may be achieved in a distributed fashion across the selective elements of the population. Furthermore, representational similarity analysis revealed that grip encoding in PMd and F5 is alike during both observation and execution. Our study provides direct evidence of mirror activity in PMd during observation of forelimb movements, and suggests that PMd is a node of the MirN circuit.