The left ventral premotor cortex is involved in hand shaping for intransitive gestures: evidence from a two-person imitation experiment

The ventral premotor cortex (PMv) is involved in grasping and object manipulation, while the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) has been suggested to play a role in reaching and action selection. These areas have also been associated with action imitation, but their relative roles in different types of action imitation are unclear. We examined the role of the left PMv and PMd in meaningful and meaningless action imitation by using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Participants imitated meaningful and meaningless actions performed by a confederate actor while both individuals were motion-tracked. rTMS was applied over the left PMv, left PMd or a vertex control site during action observation or imitation. Digit velocity was significantly greater following stimulation over the PMv during imitation compared with stimulation over the PMv during observation, regardless of action meaning. Similar effects were not observed over the PMd or vertex. In addition, stimulation over the PMv increased finger movement speed in a (non-imitative) finger–thumb opposition task. We suggest that claims regarding the role of the PMv in object-directed hand shaping may stem from the prevalence of object-directed designs in motor control research. Our results indicate that the PMv may have a broader role in ‘target-directed’ hand shaping, whereby different areas of the hand are considered targets to act upon during intransitive gesturing.

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The left ventral premotor cortex is involved in hand shaping for intransitive gestures: evidence from a two-person imitation experiment

10.31219/osf.io/qab2k ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Arran T Reader ◽

Nicholas Paul Holmes

Keyword(s):

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽

Action Observation ◽

Premotor Cortex ◽

Control Site ◽

Movement Speed ◽

Hand Shaping ◽

Ventral Premotor Cortex ◽

Action Imitation ◽

Control Research

The ventral premotor cortex (PMv) is involved in grasping and object manipulation, whilst the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) has been suggested to play a role in reaching and action selection. These areas have also been associated with action imitation, but their relative roles in different types of action imitation are unclear. We examined the role of the left PMv and PMd in meaningful and meaningless action imitation by using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Participants imitated meaningful and meaningless actions performed by a confederate actor whilst both individuals were motion-tracked. rTMS was applied over the left PMv, left PMd, or a vertex control site during action observation or imitation. Digit velocity was significantly greater following stimulation over the PMv during imitation compared to stimulation over the PMv during observation, regardless of action meaning. Similar effects were not observed over the PMd or vertex. In addition, stimulation over the PMv increased finger movement speed in a (non-imitative) finger-thumb opposition task. We suggest that claims regarding the role of the PMv in object-directed hand shaping may stem from the prevalence of object-directed designs in motor control research. Our results indicate that the PMv may have a broader role in ‘target-directed’ hand shaping, whereby different areas of the hand are considered targets to act upon during intransitive gesturing.

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Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation over the left posterior middle temporal gyrus reduces wrist velocity during emblematic hand gesture imitation

10.31219/osf.io/xjb4k ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Arran T Reader ◽

Nicholas Paul Holmes

Keyword(s):

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽

Magnetic Stimulation ◽

Motion Tracking ◽

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽

Action Observation ◽

Control Site ◽

Middle Temporal Gyrus ◽

Middle Temporal ◽

Left Posterior

Results from neuropsychological studies, and neuroimaging and behavioural experiments with healthy individuals, suggest that the imitation of meaningful and meaningless actions may be reliant on different processing routes. The left posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) is one area that might be important for the recognition and imitation of meaningful actions. We studied the role of the left pMTG in imitation using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and two-person motion-tracking. Participants imitated meaningless and emblematic meaningful hand and finger gestures performed by a confederate actor whilst both individuals were motion-tracked. rTMS was applied during action observation (before imitation) over the left pMTG or a vertex control site. Since meaningless action imitation has been previously associated with a greater wrist velocity and longer correction period at the end of the movement, we hypothesised that stimulation over the left pMTG would increase wrist velocity and extend the correction period of meaningful actions (i.e., due to interference with action recognition). We also hypothesised that imitator accuracy (actor-imitator correspondence) would be reduced following stimulation over the left pMTG. Contrary to our hypothesis, we found that stimulation over the pMTG, but not the vertex, during action observation reduced wrist velocity when participants later imitated meaningful, but not meaningless, hand gestures. These results provide causal evidence for a role of the left pMTG in the imitation of meaningful gestures, and may also be in keeping with proposals that left posterior temporal regions play a role in the production of postural components of gesture.

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Correction to: ‘The left ventral premotor cortex is involved in hand shaping for intransitive gestures: evidence from a two-person imitation experiment’

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.181855 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 5 (11) ◽

pp. 181855

Author(s):

Arran T. Reader ◽

Nicholas P. Holmes

Keyword(s):

Premotor Cortex ◽

Hand Shaping ◽

Ventral Premotor Cortex ◽

Intransitive Gestures

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On the role of the ventral premotor cortex and anterior intraparietal area for predictive and reactive scaling of grip force

Brain Research ◽

10.1016/j.brainres.2008.06.027 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 1228 ◽

pp. 73-80 ◽

Cited By ~ 48

Author(s):

Manuel Dafotakis ◽

Roland Sparing ◽

Simon B. Eickhoff ◽

Gereon R. Fink ◽

Dennis A. Nowak

Keyword(s):

Grip Force ◽

Premotor Cortex ◽

Ventral Premotor Cortex

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Sequences of Abstract Nonbiological Stimuli Share Ventral Premotor Cortex with Action Observation and Imagery

Journal of Neuroscience ◽

10.1523/jneurosci.1169-04.2004 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 24 (24) ◽

pp. 5467-5474 ◽

Cited By ~ 139

Author(s):

R. I. Schubotz

Keyword(s):

Action Observation ◽

Premotor Cortex ◽

Ventral Premotor Cortex

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Disrupting the Ventral Premotor Cortex Interferes with the Contribution of Action Observation to Use-dependent Plasticity

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_00051 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 23 (12) ◽

pp. 3757-3766 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Gabriela Cantarero ◽

Joseph M. Galea ◽

Loni Ajagbe ◽

Rachel Salas ◽

Jeff Willis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Frontal Cortex ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Action Observation ◽

Premotor Cortex ◽

Motor Training ◽

Stroke Patients ◽

Dependent Plasticity ◽

Beneficial Effects ◽

Ventral Premotor Cortex ◽

Cortical Motor

Action observation (AO), observing another individual perform an action, has been implicated in several higher cognitive processes including forming basic motor memories. Previous work has shown that physical practice (PP) results in cortical motor representational changes, referred to as use-dependent plasticity (UDP), and that AO combined with PP potentiates UDP in both healthy adults and stroke patients. In humans, AO results in activation of the ventral premotor cortex (PMv), however, whether this PMv activation has a functional contribution to UDP is not known. Here, we studied the effects disruption of PMv has on UDP when subjects performed PP combined with AO (PP + AO). Subjects participated in two randomized crossover sessions measuring the amount of UDP resulting from PP + AO while receiving disruptive (1 Hz) TMS over the fMRI-activated PMv or over frontal cortex (Sham). We found that, unlike the sham session, disruptive TMS over PMv reduced the beneficial contribution of AO to UDP. To ensure that disruption of PMv was specifically interfering with the contribution of AO and not PP, subjects completed two more control sessions where they performed only PP while receiving disruptive TMS over PMv or frontal cortex. We found that the magnitude of UDP for both control sessions was similar to PP + AO with TMS over PMv. These findings suggest that the fMRI activation found in PMv during AO studies is functionally relevant to task performance, at least for the beneficial effects that AO exerts over motor training.

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The role of the human ventral premotor cortex in counting successive stimuli

Experimental Brain Research ◽

10.1007/s00221-006-0736-8 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 178 (3) ◽

pp. 339-350 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Kenji Kansaku ◽

Benjamin Carver ◽

Ari Johnson ◽

Keiji Matsuda ◽

Norihiro Sadato ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Premotor Cortex ◽

Ventral Premotor Cortex

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Predictive coding account of action perception: Evidence from effective connectivity in the Action Observation Network

10.1101/722298 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Burcu A. Urgen ◽

Ayse P. Saygin

Keyword(s):

Effective Connectivity ◽

Action Observation ◽

Premotor Cortex ◽

Predictive Coding ◽

Causal Modeling ◽

Action Perception ◽

Feedback Connection ◽

Ventral Premotor Cortex ◽

Action Observation Network ◽

Observation Network

AbstractVisual perception of actions is supported by a network of brain regions in the occipito-temporal, parietal, and premotor cortex in the primate brain, known as the Action Observation Network (AON). Although there is a growing body of research that characterizes the functional properties of each node of this network, the communication and direction of information flow between the nodes is unclear. According to the predictive coding account of action perception, this network is not a purely feedforward system but has feedback connections through which prediction error signals are communicated between the regions of the AON. In the present study, we investigated the effective connectivity of the AON in an experimental setting where the human subjects’ predictions about the observed agent were violated, using fMRI and Dynamical Causal Modeling (DCM). We specifically examined the influence of the lowest and highest nodes in the AON hierarchy, pSTS and ventral premotor cortex, respectively, on the middle node, inferior parietal cortex during prediction violation. Our DCM results suggest that the influence on the inferior parietal node is through a feedback connection from ventral premotor cortex during perception of actions that violate people’s predictions.

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