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The Journal of Neuroscience, October 29, 2008, 28(44):11231-11239; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3585-08.2008

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Executed and Observed Movements Have Different Distributed Representations in Human aIPS

Ilan Dinstein,¹ Justin L. Gardner,^1,2 Mehrdad Jazayeri,³ and David J. Heeger^1,2

¹Center for Neural Science and ²Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York 10003, and ³Physiology and Biophysics Department, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195

Correspondence should be addressed to Ilan Dinstein, Center for Neural Science, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003. Email: ilan{at}cns.nyu.edu

How similar are the representations of executed and observed hand movements in the human brain? We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and multivariate pattern classification analysis to compare spatial distributions of cortical activity in response to several observed and executed movements. Subjects played the rock–paper–scissors game against a videotaped opponent, freely choosing their movement on each trial and observing the opponent's hand movement after a short delay. The identities of executed movements were correctly classified from fMRI responses in several areas of motor cortex, observed movements were classified from responses in visual cortex, and both observed and executed movements were classified from responses in either left or right anterior intraparietal sulcus (aIPS). We interpret above chance classification as evidence for reproducible, distributed patterns of cortical activity that were unique for execution and/or observation of each movement. Responses in aIPS enabled accurate classification of movement identity within each modality (visual or motor), but did not enable accurate classification across modalities (i.e., decoding observed movements from a classifier trained on executed movements and vice versa). These results support theories regarding the central role of aIPS in the perception and execution of movements. However, the spatial pattern of activity for a particular observed movement was distinctly different from that for the same movement when executed, suggesting that observed and executed movements are mostly represented by distinctly different subpopulations of neurons in aIPS.

Key words: motor control; classification; fMRI; movement selectivity; mirror neurons; mirror system; movement perception

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Received July 27, 2008; revised Sept. 16, 2008; accepted Sept. 18, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Ilan Dinstein, Center for Neural Science, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003. Email: ilan{at}cns.nyu.edu

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