• Farsin Hamzei, Magnus-Sebastian Vry, Dorothee Saur, Volkmar Glauche, Markus Hoeren, Irina Mader, Cornelius Weiller, and Michel Rijntjes.
• Section of Neurological Rehabilitation, Hans Berger Department of Neurology Department of Neurology, Moritz Klinik Bad Klosterlausnitz, Bad Klosterlausnitz, Germany Center for Sepsis Control and Care (CSCC), Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany.
• Cereb. Cortex. 2016 May 1; 26 (5): 2215-24.

AbstractThe inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is active during both goal-directed action and while observing the same motor act, leading to the idea that also the meaning of a motor act (action understanding) is represented in this "mirror neuron system" (MNS). However, in the dual-loop model, based on dorsal and ventral visual streams, the MNS is thought to be a function of the dorsal steam, projecting to pars opercularis (BA44) of IFG, while recent studies suggest that conceptual meaning and semantic analysis are a function of ventral connections, projecting mainly to pars triangularis (BA45) of IFG. To resolve this discrepancy, we investigated action observation (AO) and imitation (IMI) using fMRI in a large group of subjects. A grasping task (GR) assessed the contribution from movement without AO. We analyzed connections of the MNS-related areas within IFG with postrolandic areas with the use of activation-based DTI. We found that action observation with imitation are mainly a function of the dorsal stream centered on dorsal part of BA44, but also involve BA45, which is dorsally and ventrally connected to the same postrolandic regions. The current finding suggests that BA45 is the crucial part where the MNS and the dual-loop system interact. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

28 keywords...

hide…