Neural encoding of visual action stimuli in mirror neurons in monkey premotor area

前额叶皮质的镜像神经元在动作执行和动作观察过程中处于活跃状态。这种神经元对视觉呈现的动作刺激表现出有趣的调节特性，将对运动效应器细节的选择性与关于目标对象的信息以及效应器和对象的空间关系结合在一起。然而，运动前皮质F5区对动作刺激进行视觉处理的精确神经和计算机制在很大程度上仍不清楚。这项拟议的项目建立在之前一个关于F5镜像神经元视觉特性的项目中获得的结果的基础上。通过将电生理实验与计算机图形学和神经建模的最新方法相结合，我们希望进一步了解F5区与动作相关的视觉信息的处理。具体地说，我们打算研究关于动作的空间和时间信息是如何由F5区的镜像神经元编码的，以及动态视觉和运动表征如何在单细胞水平上相互作用。这些实验可能会为镜像神经系统的计算理论揭开新的限制。

Mirror neurons in prefrontal cortex are active during the execution of actions and during action observation. Such neurons show interesting tuning properties for visually presented action stimuli that combine selectivity for details of the moving effector with information about the goal object and the spatial relationship of effector and object. Yet, the precise neural and computational mechanisms underlying the visual processing of action stimuli in area F5 of the premotor cortex remain largely unknown. The proposed project builds on previous results obtained in a project on the visual properties of F5 mirror neurons. By combining electrophysiological experiments with state-of-the-art methods from computer graphics and neural modelling we want to further the understanding of the processing of action-related visual information in area F5. Specifically, we intend to investigate how spatial and temporal information about actions is encoded by mirror neurons in area F5 and how dynamic visual and motor representations interact at the level of single cells. These experiments may unravel new constraints for computational theories on the mirror neuron system.