Activity in the action observation network enhances emotion regulation during observation of risk-taking: an fMRI study

Little is known about the action observation network (AON) in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (UCP). Using fMRI, we aimed to explore AON and sensory-motor network (SMN) in UCP children and compare them to typically developed (TD) children and analyse the relationship between AON (re-)organization and several neurophysiological and clinical measures. Twelve UCP children were assessed with clinical scales and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). For the fMRI study, they underwent a paradigm based on observation of complex and simple object-manipulation tasks executed by dominant and nondominant hand. Moreover, UCP and TD children carried out a further fMRI session to explore SMN in both an active motor and passive sensory task. AON in the UCP group showed higher lateralization, negatively related to performances on clinical scales, and had greater activation of unaffected hemisphere as compared to the bilateral representation in the TD group. In addition, a good congruence was found between bilateral or contralateral activation of AON and activation of SMN and TMS data. These findings indicate that our paradigm might be useful in exploring AON and the response to therapy in UCP subjects.

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Does the Side of Stroke Matter? An fMRI Study on the Role of Stroke Laterality on the Action Observation Network

American Journal of Occupational Therapy ◽

10.5014/ajot.2017.71s1-po6105 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 71 (4_Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 7111505148p1

Author(s):

Kaori L. Ito ◽

Sook-Lei Liew ◽

Kathleen Alice Garrison ◽

Panthea Heydari ◽

Mona Sobhani ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Action Observation ◽

Action Observation Network ◽

Observation Network ◽

Fmri Study

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The Case of Pretense: Observing Actions and Inferring Goals

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2009.21049 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 642-653 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Ricarda I. Schubotz ◽

D. Yves von Cramon

Keyword(s):

Action Observation ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Action Observation Network ◽

Observation Network ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Scene Gist ◽

Brain Correlates ◽

Goal Inference ◽

The Brain ◽

Real Action

When we observe an action, we know almost immediately what goal is pursued by the actor. Strikingly, this applies also to pretend action (pantomime), which provides relevant information about the manipulation itself but not about the manipulated objects. The present fMRI study addressed the issue of goal inference from pretend action as compared with real action. We found differences as well as commonalities for the brain correlates of inferring goals from both types of action. They differed with regard to the weights of the underlying action observation network, indicating the exploitation of object information in the case of real actions and manipulation information in the case of pretense. However, goal inferences from manipulation information resulted in a common network for both real and pretend action. Interestingly, this latter network also comprised areas that are not identified by action observation and that might be due to the processing of scene gist and to the evaluation of fit of putative action goals. These findings suggest that observation of pretense emphasizes the requirement to internally simulate the observed act but rule out fundamental differences of how observers cope with real and pretend action.

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Subjective understanding of actions and emotions involves the interplay of the semantic and action observation networks in the brain

10.1101/2021.04.15.439961 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Minye Zhan ◽

Rainer Wilhelm Goebel ◽

Beatrice de Gelder

Keyword(s):

Action Observation ◽

Premotor Cortex ◽

Emotion Understanding ◽

Action Observation Network ◽

Observation Network ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Subjective Reports ◽

The Brain ◽

Left Middle ◽

7T Fmri

How we subjectively generate an understanding of other people's bodily actions and emotions is not well understood. In this 7T fMRI study, we examined the representational geometry of bodily action- and emotion-understanding by mapping individual subjective reports with word embeddings, besides using conventional univariate/multivariate analyses with predefined categories. Dimensionality reduction revealed that the representations for perceived action and emotion were high dimensional, each correlated to but were not reducible to the predefined action and emotion categories. With searchlight representational similarity analysis, we found the left middle superior temporal sulcus and left dorsal premotor cortex corresponded to the subjective action and emotion representations. Furthermore using task-residual functional connectivity and hierarchical clustering, we found that areas in the action observation network and the semantic/default-mode network were functionally connected to these two seed regions and showed similar representations. Our study provides direct evidence that both networks were concurrently involved in subjective action and emotion understanding.

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