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fMRI Evidence of ‘Mirror’ Responses to Geometric Shapes

Mirror neurons may be a genetic adaptation for social interaction [1]. Alternatively, the associative hypothesis [2], [3] proposes that the development of mirror neurons is driven by sensorimotor learning, and that, given suitable experience, mirror neurons will respond to any stimulus. This hypothe...

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Autores principales: Press, Clare, Catmur, Caroline, Cook, Richard, Widmann, Hannah, Heyes, Cecilia, Bird, Geoffrey
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3522615/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23251653
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0051934
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author Press, Clare
Catmur, Caroline
Cook, Richard
Widmann, Hannah
Heyes, Cecilia
Bird, Geoffrey
author_facet Press, Clare
Catmur, Caroline
Cook, Richard
Widmann, Hannah
Heyes, Cecilia
Bird, Geoffrey
author_sort Press, Clare
collection PubMed
description Mirror neurons may be a genetic adaptation for social interaction [1]. Alternatively, the associative hypothesis [2], [3] proposes that the development of mirror neurons is driven by sensorimotor learning, and that, given suitable experience, mirror neurons will respond to any stimulus. This hypothesis was tested using fMRI adaptation to index populations of cells with mirror properties. After sensorimotor training, where geometric shapes were paired with hand actions, BOLD response was measured while human participants experienced runs of events in which shape observation alternated with action execution or observation. Adaptation from shapes to action execution, and critically, observation, occurred in ventral premotor cortex (PMv) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Adaptation from shapes to execution indicates that neuronal populations responding to the shapes had motor properties, while adaptation to observation demonstrates that these populations had mirror properties. These results indicate that sensorimotor training induced populations of cells with mirror properties in PMv and IPL to respond to the observation of arbitrary shapes. They suggest that the mirror system has not been shaped by evolution to respond in a mirror fashion to biological actions; instead, its development is mediated by stimulus-general processes of learning within a system adapted for visuomotor control.
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spelling pubmed-35226152012-12-18 fMRI Evidence of ‘Mirror’ Responses to Geometric Shapes Press, Clare Catmur, Caroline Cook, Richard Widmann, Hannah Heyes, Cecilia Bird, Geoffrey PLoS One Research Article Mirror neurons may be a genetic adaptation for social interaction [1]. Alternatively, the associative hypothesis [2], [3] proposes that the development of mirror neurons is driven by sensorimotor learning, and that, given suitable experience, mirror neurons will respond to any stimulus. This hypothesis was tested using fMRI adaptation to index populations of cells with mirror properties. After sensorimotor training, where geometric shapes were paired with hand actions, BOLD response was measured while human participants experienced runs of events in which shape observation alternated with action execution or observation. Adaptation from shapes to action execution, and critically, observation, occurred in ventral premotor cortex (PMv) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Adaptation from shapes to execution indicates that neuronal populations responding to the shapes had motor properties, while adaptation to observation demonstrates that these populations had mirror properties. These results indicate that sensorimotor training induced populations of cells with mirror properties in PMv and IPL to respond to the observation of arbitrary shapes. They suggest that the mirror system has not been shaped by evolution to respond in a mirror fashion to biological actions; instead, its development is mediated by stimulus-general processes of learning within a system adapted for visuomotor control. Public Library of Science 2012-12-14 /pmc/articles/PMC3522615/ /pubmed/23251653 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0051934 Text en © 2012 Press et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Press, Clare
Catmur, Caroline
Cook, Richard
Widmann, Hannah
Heyes, Cecilia
Bird, Geoffrey
fMRI Evidence of ‘Mirror’ Responses to Geometric Shapes
title fMRI Evidence of ‘Mirror’ Responses to Geometric Shapes
title_full fMRI Evidence of ‘Mirror’ Responses to Geometric Shapes
title_fullStr fMRI Evidence of ‘Mirror’ Responses to Geometric Shapes
title_full_unstemmed fMRI Evidence of ‘Mirror’ Responses to Geometric Shapes
title_short fMRI Evidence of ‘Mirror’ Responses to Geometric Shapes
title_sort fmri evidence of ‘mirror’ responses to geometric shapes
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3522615/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23251653
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0051934
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