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An EEG study on the somatotopic organisation of sensorimotor cortex activation during action execution and observation in infancy.

ABSTRACT: Previous studies have shown that sensorimotor cortex activation is somatotopically-organised during action execution and observation in adulthood. Here we aimed to investigate the development of this phenomenon in infancy. We elicited arm and leg actions from 12-month-old infants and presented them, and a control group of adults, with videos of arm and leg actions while we measured their sensorimotor alpha suppression using EEG. Sensorimotor alpha suppression during action execution was somatotopically organised in 12-month-old infants: there was more suppression over the arm areas when infants performed reaching actions, and more suppression over the leg area when they performed kicking actions. Adults also showed somatotopically-organised activation during the observation of reaching and kicking actions. In contrast, infants did not show somatotopically-organised activation during action observation, but instead activated the arm areas when observing both reaching and kicking actions. We suggest that the somatotopic organisation of sensorimotor cortex activation during action observation may depend on infants' understanding of the action goal and their expectations about how this goal will be achieved.

SUBMITTER: de Klerk CC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4649773 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Introduction: Humans engage in Interpersonal Synchrony (IPS) as they synchronize their own actions with that of a social partner over time. When humans engage in imitation/IPS behaviors, multiple regions in the frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices are activated including the putative Mirror Neuron Systems (Iacoboni, 2005; Buxbaum et al., 2014). In the present study, we compared fNIRS-based cortical activation patterns across three conditions of action observation ("Watch" partner), action execution ("Do" on your own), and IPS (move "Together"). Methods: Fifteen typically developing adults completed a reach and cleanup task with the right arm while cortical activation was examined using a 24-channel, Hitachi fNIRS system. Each adult completed 8 trials across three conditions (Watch, Do, and Together). For each fNIRS channel, we obtained oxy hemoglobin (HbO2) and deoxy hemoglobin (HHb) profiles. Spatial registration methods were applied to localize the cortical regions underneath each channel and to define six regions of interest (ROIs), right and left supero-anterior (SA or pre/post-central gyri), infero-posterior (IP or angular/supramarginal gyri), and infero-anterior (IA or superior/middle temporal gyri) regions. Results: In terms of task-related differences, the majority of the ROIs were more active during Do and Together compared to Watch. Only the right/ipsilateral fronto-parietal and inferior parietal cortices had greater activation during Together compared to Do. Conclusions: The similarities in cortical activation between action execution and IPS suggest that neural control of IPS is more similar to its execution than observational aspects. To be clear, the more complex the actions performed, the more difficult the IPS behaviors. Secondly, IPS behaviors required slightly more right-sided activation (vs. execution/observation) suggesting that IPS is a higher-order process involving more bilateral activation compared to its sub-components. These findings provide a neuroimaging framework to study imitation and IPS impairments in special populations such as infants at risk for and children with ASD.

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An EEG study on the somatotopic organisation of sensorimotor cortex activation during action execution and observation in infancy.

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