Dataset Information

Critical brain regions for tool-related and imitative actions: a componential analysis.

ABSTRACT: Numerous functional neuroimaging studies suggest that widespread bilateral parietal, temporal, and frontal regions are involved in tool-related and pantomimed gesture performance, but the role of these regions in specific aspects of gestural tasks remains unclear. In the largest prospective study of apraxia-related lesions to date, we performed voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping with data from 71 left hemisphere stroke participants to assess the critical neural substrates of three types of actions: gestures produced in response to viewed tools, imitation of tool-specific gestures demonstrated by the examiner, and imitation of meaningless gestures. Thus, two of the three gesture types were tool-related, and two of the three were imitative, enabling pairwise comparisons designed to highlight commonalities and differences. Gestures were scored separately for postural (hand/arm positioning) and kinematic (amplitude/timing) accuracy. Lesioned voxels in the left posterior temporal gyrus were significantly associated with lower scores on the posture component for both of the tool-related gesture tasks. Poor performance on the kinematic component of all three gesture tasks was significantly associated with lesions in left inferior parietal and frontal regions. These data enable us to propose a componential neuroanatomic model of action that delineates the specific components required for different gestural action tasks. Thus, visual posture information and kinematic capacities are differentially critical to the three types of actions studied here: the kinematic aspect is particularly critical for imitation of meaningless movement, capacity for tool-action posture representations are particularly necessary for pantomimed gestures to the sight of tools, and both capacities inform imitation of tool-related movements. These distinctions enable us to advance traditional accounts of apraxia.

SUBMITTER: Buxbaum LJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4065019 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Critical brain regions for tool-related and imitative actions: a componential analysis.

Buxbaum Laurel J LJ Shapiro Allison D AD Coslett H Branch HB

Brain : a journal of neurology 20140427 Pt 7

Numerous functional neuroimaging studies suggest that widespread bilateral parietal, temporal, and frontal regions are involved in tool-related and pantomimed gesture performance, but the role of these regions in specific aspects of gestural tasks remains unclear. In the largest prospective study of apraxia-related lesions to date, we performed voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping with data from 71 left hemisphere stroke participants to assess the critical neural substrates of three types of actio ...[more]

PMID: 24776969

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Project description:Tools pose a challenge to the need to select actions appropriate for task goals and environmental constraints. For many tools (e.g., calculator), actions for "using" and "grasping-to-move" conflict with each other and may compete during selection. To date, little is known about the mechanisms that enable selection between possible tool actions or their neural substrates. The study of patients with chronic left hemisphere stroke, many of whom are deficient in tool-use action (apraxic), provides an opportunity to elucidate these issues. Here, 31 such patients pantomimed or recognized tool use actions for "conflict" and "non-conflict" tools. Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM), lesion subtraction, and tractographic overlap analyses were used to determine brain regions necessary for selecting among tool-directed actions. Lesions to posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) and anterior intraparietal sulcus (aIPS) tended to impair production of use actions similarly for both conflict and non-conflict tools. By contrast, lesions to the supramarginal gyrus (SMG), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)/anterior insula, and superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) specifically impaired production of use actions for conflict tools. Patients' errors on conflict tools suggested inappropriate selection of grasping actions and difficulty selecting single actions. Use/grasp conflict had no effect on action recognition. We suggest that the SMG/SLF/IFG pathway implements biased competition between possible tool actions, while aIPS and pMTG compute the structure-based and skilled use actions, respectively, that constitute input to this competitive process. This is the first study to demonstrate a reliable link between a characteristic of single tools (i.e., their association with different use and grasp actions) and action selection difficulties. Additionally, the data allow us to posit an SMG-involved subtype of apraxia characterized by an inability to resolve action competition.

Project description:Neuropathic pain is a chronic debilitating condition with a high comorbidity with depression. Clinical reports and animal studies have suggested that both the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) are critically implicated in regulating the affective symptoms of neuropathic pain. Neuropathic pain induces differential long-term structural, functional, and biochemical changes in both regions, which are thought to be regulated by multiple waves of gene transcription. However, the differences in the transcriptomic profiles changed by neuropathic pain between these regions are largely unknown. Furthermore, women are more susceptible to pain and depression than men. The molecular mechanisms underlying this sexual dimorphism remain to be explored. Here, we performed RNA sequencing and analyzed the transcriptomic profiles of the mPFC and ACC of female and male mice at 2 weeks after spared nerve injury (SNI), an early time point when the mice began to show mild depressive symptoms. Our results showed that the SNI-induced transcriptomic changes in female and male mice were largely distinct. Interestingly, the female mice exhibited more robust transcriptomic changes in the ACC than male, whereas the opposite pattern occurred in the mPFC. Cell type enrichment analyses revealed that the differentially expressed genes involved genes enriched in neurons, various types of glia and endothelial cells. We further performed gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA), which revealed significant de-enrichment of myelin sheath development in both female and male mPFC after SNI. In the female ACC, gene sets for synaptic organization were enriched, and gene sets for extracellular matrix were de-enriched after SNI, while such signatures were absent in male ACC. Collectively, these findings revealed region-specific and sexual dimorphism at the transcriptional levels induced by neuropathic pain, and provided novel therapeutic targets for chronic pain and its associated affective disorders.

Dataset Information

Critical brain regions for tool-related and imitative actions: a componential analysis.

Publications

Critical brain regions for tool-related and imitative actions: a componential analysis.

Similar Datasets

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