Action observation activates neurons of the monkey ventrolateral prefrontal cortex
| Autor: | Leonardo Fogassi, Luciano Simone, Francesca Rodà, Stefano Rozzi, Marco Bimbi |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
0301 basic medicine
Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex Movement Population Action Potentials Prefrontal Cortex Macaque Article Premotor cortex 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine biology.animal medicine Animals Prefrontal cortex education Neurons Temporal cortex education.field_of_study Multidisciplinary Hand Strength biology Motor Cortex Macaca mulatta 030104 developmental biology medicine.anatomical_structure Action (philosophy) Psychology Neuroscience Photic Stimulation Psychomotor Performance 030217 neurology & neurosurgery Motor cortex |
| Zdroj: | Scientific Reports |
| ISSN: | 2045-2322 |
| DOI: | 10.1038/srep44378 |
| Popis: | Prefrontal cortex is crucial for exploiting contextual information for the planning and guidance of behavioral responses. Among contextual cues, those provided by others’ behavior are particularly important, in primates, for selecting appropriate reactions and suppressing the inappropriate ones. These latter functions deeply rely on the ability to understand others’ actions. However, it is largely unknown whether prefrontal neurons are activated by action observation. To address this issue, we recorded the activity of ventrolateral prefrontal (VLPF) neurons of macaque monkeys during the observation of videos depicting biological movements performed by a monkey or a human agent, and object motion. Our results show that a population of VLPF neurons respond to the observation of biological movements, in particular those representing goal directed actions. Many of these neurons also show a preference for the agent performing the action. The neural response is present also when part of the observed movement is obscured, suggesting that these VLPF neurons code a high order representation of the observed action rather than a simple visual description of it. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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