RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Separate Areas for Mirror Responses and Agency within the Parietal Operculum
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 12268
OP 12273
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2836-08.2008
VO 28
IS 47
A1 Zarinah Agnew
A1 Richard J. S. Wise
YR 2008
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/28/47/12268.abstract
AB There is common neural activity in parietal and premotor cortex when executing and observing goal-directed movements: the “mirror” response. In addition, active and passive limb movements cause overlapping activity in premotor and somatosensory cortex. This association of motor and sensory activity cannot ascribe agency, the ability to discriminate between self- and non-self-generated events. This requires that some signals accompanying self-initiated limb movement dissociate from those evoked by observing the action of another or by movement imposed on oneself by external force. We demonstrated associated activity within the medial parietal operculum in response to feedforward visual or somatosensory information accompanying observed and imposed finger movements. In contrast, the response to motor and somatosensory information during self-initiated finger and observed movements resulted in activity localized to the lateral parietal operculum. This ascribes separate functions to medial and lateral second-order somatosensory cortex, anatomically dissociating the agent and the mirror response, demonstrating how executed and observed events are distinguished despite common activity in widespread sensorimotor cortices.