Unknown

Dataset Information

0

Corticospinal neurons in macaque ventral premotor cortex with mirror properties: a potential mechanism for action suppression?

ABSTRACT: The discovery of "mirror neurons" in area F5 of the ventral premotor cortex has prompted many theories as to their possible function. However, the identity of mirror neurons remains unknown. Here, we investigated whether identified pyramidal tract neurons (PTNs) in area F5 of two adult macaques exhibited "mirror-like" activity. About half of the 64 PTNs tested showed significant modulation of their activity while monkeys observed precision grip of an object carried out by an experimenter, with somewhat fewer showing modulation during precision grip without an object or grasping concealed from the monkey. Therefore, mirror-like activity can be transmitted directly to the spinal cord via PTNs. A novel finding is that many PTNs (17/64) showed complete suppression of discharge during action observation, while firing actively when the monkey grasped food rewards. We speculate that this suppression of PTN discharge might be involved in the inhibition of self-movement during action observation.

SUBMITTER: Kraskov A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2862290 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

Json Xml
altmetric image

Publications

Corticospinal neurons in macaque ventral premotor cortex with mirror properties: a potential mechanism for action suppression?

Kraskov Alexander A   Dancause Numa N   Quallo Marsha M MM   Shepherd Samantha S   Lemon Roger N RN  

Neuron 20091201 6

The discovery of "mirror neurons" in area F5 of the ventral premotor cortex has prompted many theories as to their possible function. However, the identity of mirror neurons remains unknown. Here, we investigated whether identified pyramidal tract neurons (PTNs) in area F5 of two adult macaques exhibited "mirror-like" activity. About half of the 64 PTNs tested showed significant modulation of their activity while monkeys observed precision grip of an object carried out by an experimenter, with s  ...[more]

Similar Datasets

Unknown Neurons controlling voluntary vocalization in the macaque ventral premotor cortex.
| S-EPMC3206851 | biostudies-literature
Unknown M1 corticospinal mirror neurons and their role in movement suppression during action observation.
| S-EPMC3566480 | biostudies-literature
Unknown Differential neural dynamics underling pragmatic and semantic affordance processing in macaque ventral premotor cortex.
| S-EPMC6691108 | biostudies-literature
Unknown Movement initiation and grasp representation in premotor and primary motor cortex mirror neurons.
| S-EPMC7384858 | biostudies-literature
Unknown Spatial and viewpoint selectivity for others' observed actions in monkey ventral premotor mirror neurons.
| S-EPMC5557915 | biostudies-other
Unknown Simultaneous scalp recorded EEG and local field potentials from monkey ventral premotor cortex during action observation and execution reveals the contribution of mirror and motor neurons to the mu-rhythm.
| S-EPMC6612677 | biostudies-literature
Unknown Disrupting the ventral premotor cortex interferes with the contribution of action observation to use-dependent plasticity.
| S-EPMC3638076 | biostudies-literature
Unknown A role for the ventral premotor cortex beyond performance monitoring.
| S-EPMC2774019 | biostudies-literature
Unknown Human posterior parietal and dorsal premotor cortex encode the visual properties of an upcoming action.
| S-EPMC6177124 | biostudies-literature
Unknown A network centered on ventral premotor cortex exerts both facilitatory and inhibitory control over primary motor cortex during action reprogramming.
| S-EPMC2880444 | biostudies-other