Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 211.6 to int loses precision in C:\Inetpub\vhosts\kidney.de\httpdocs\pget.php on line 534
Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 211.6 to int loses precision in C:\Inetpub\vhosts\kidney.de\httpdocs\pget.php on line 534
Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 211.6 to int loses precision in C:\Inetpub\vhosts\kidney.de\httpdocs\pget.php on line 534
Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 211.6 to int loses precision in C:\Inetpub\vhosts\kidney.de\httpdocs\pget.php on line 534
Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 211.6 to int loses precision in C:\Inetpub\vhosts\kidney.de\httpdocs\pget.php on line 534
Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 211.6 to int loses precision in C:\Inetpub\vhosts\kidney.de\httpdocs\pget.php on line 534 Neuroscience 2017 ; 358 (ä): 300-15 Nephropedia Template TP
gab.com Text
Twit Text FOAVip
Twit Text #
English Wikipedia
Two different mirror neuron networks: the sensorimotor (hand) and limbic (face) pathways #MMPMID28687313
Ferrari P; Gerbella M; Coudé G; Rozzi S
Neuroscience 2017[Sep]; 358 (ä): 300-15 PMID28687313show ga
The vast majority of functional studies investigating mirror neurons (MNs) explored their properties in relation to hand actions, and very few investigated how MNs responding to mouth actions or communicative gestures. From an anatomical point of view, hand and mouth MNs were recorded in two partially overlapping sectors of the ventral precentral cortex of the macaque monkey: hand MNs were located more dorsally (area F5), mouth MNs more ventrally, extending over the border between the premotor (F5) and the opercular region (DO and PrCO). Despite this anatomical segregation, there is a general assumption that a same neuroanatomical network, having a main source of visual information deriving from the parietal cortex, supports both hand and mouth MNs. In the current review, we challenge this perspective and describe the connectivity pattern of mouth MNs sector, comparing it with the hand MNs sector of F5. The mouth and hand MNs sectors share part of their connectivity pattern, but each also has distinct and specific connections. In particular, the mouth MNs F5/opercular region is connected with premotor, parietal areas mostly related to the somatosensory and motor representation of the face/mouth (area F4, the region between areas F3 and F6, areas PF and SII) and with area PrCO, involved in processing gustatory and somatosensory intraoral input. Unlike hand MNs, mouth MNs do not receive their visual input from parietal regions. Information related to face/communicative behaviors could come from the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (areas 12 and 46). Further strong connections derive from limbic structures involved in encoding emotional facial expressions and motivational/reward processing. These brain structures include the anterior cingulate cortex, the anterior and mid-dorsal insula, orbitofrontal cortex and the basolateral amygdala. These anatomical data are in agreement with neurophysiological evidence showing that in the mouth MNs F5/opercular region there are neurons responding to facial communicative gestures and also neurons firing during the production of vocalizations. The mirror mechanism is therefore composed and supported by at least two different anatomical pathways: one is concerned with sensorimotor transformation in relation to reaching and hand grasping within the traditional parietal-premotor circuits; the second one is linked to the mouth/face motor control and is connected with limbic structures, involved in communication/emotions and reward processing. This new view of the mirror mechanism provides a new theoretical account to explain different patterns of brain activation in neuroimaging studies and has also important implications for our comprehension of the developmental factors and evolutionary processes involved in mirror neurons origins and functions.
free
free
free
Neuroscience 2017 ; 358 (ä): 300-15
