The Role of F5 Mirror Neurons in Representing Different Types of Hand Movements
Author: Shengjun Wen
Publisher:
Published: 2024
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPosts
The Mirror Neuron System
Author: Christian Keysers
Publisher: Psychology Press
Published: 2016-06
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 9781138877818
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMirror neurons are premotor neurons, originally discovered in the macaque brain , that discharge both during execution of goal-directed actions and during the observation of similar actions executed by another individual. They therefore ¿mirror¿ others¿ actions on the observer's motor repertoire. In the last decade an impressive amount of work has been devoted to the study of their properties and to investigate if they are present also in our species. Neuroimaging and electrophysiological techniques have shown that a mirror-neuron system does exist in the human brain as well. Among ¿mirror¿ human areas, Broca¿s area (the frontal area for speech production) is almost constantly activated by action observation. This suggests a possible evolutionary link between action understanding and verbal communication. In the most recent years, mirror-like phenomena have been demonstrated also for domains others than the pure motor one. Examples of that are the somatosensory and the emotional systems, possibly providing a neurophysiological basis to phenomena such as embodiment and empathy. This special issue collects some of the most representative works on the mirror-neuron system to give a panoramic view on current research and to stimulate new experiments in this exciting field.
Sensory Guidance of Movement
Author: Gregory R. Bock
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 2008-04-30
Total Pages: 354
ISBN-13: 0470515570
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSensory Guidance of Movement Chairman: Mitchell Glickstein, 1998 In the past few years there has been an increasing recognition of the multiplicity of sensory and motor areas of the cerebral cortex. However, still relatively little is known about the way in which sensory areas are functionally linked to motor areas. On the basis of current anatomical evidence, there are three major pathways involved in this linking. One of these routes is by way of cortico-cortical links, beginning in the primary sensory areas of the cortex, and connecting via a series of synaptic relays to motor or premotor areas. There are also two massive subcortical routes. One of these involves the basal ganglia, the other the cerebellum. This book focuses on current research on the structure and functions of these three pathways and their role in the sensory guidance of movement. Motor psychophysicists have made progress in characterizing the nature of movements such as reaching and grasping, and how such movements are modified by incoming sensory information. Anatomical studies have revealed important new information about the ways in which sensory information is relayed to the basal ganglia and cerebellum. There is now a volume of scanning evidence about the activity of brain areas in humans and recordings from individual neurons in animals during sensory guided movement. This book summarizes much of this recent knowledge and provides a forum for suggesting new avenues for further study. The topics covered also have important implications for understanding the role of these pathways in human disease.
Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language
Author: Maxim I. Stamenov
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Published: 2002-12-17
Total Pages: 402
ISBN-13: 9027297088
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe emergence of language, social intelligence, and tool development are what made homo sapiens sapiens differentiate itself from all other biological species in the world. The use of language and the management of social and instrumental skills imply an awareness of intention and the consideration that one faces another individual with an attitude analogical to that of one’s own. The metaphor of ‘mirror’ aptly comes to mind.Recent investigations have shown that the human ability to ‘mirror’ other’s actions originates in the brain at a much deeper level than phenomenal awareness. A new class of neurons has been discovered in the premotor area of the monkey brain: ‘mirror neurons’. Quite remarkably, they are tuned to fire to the enaction as well as observation of specific classes of behavior: fine manual actions and actions performed by mouth. They become activated independent of the agent, be it the self or a third person whose action is observed. The activation in mirror neurons is automatic and binds the observation and enaction of some behavior by the self or by the observed other. The peculiar first-to-third-person ‘intersubjectivity’ of the performance of mirror neurons and their surprising complementarity to the functioning of strategic communicative face-to-face (first-to-second person) interaction may shed new light on the functional architecture of conscious vs. unconscious mental processes and the relationship between behavioral and communicative action in monkeys, primates, and humans. The present volume discusses the nature of mirror neurons as presented by the research team of Prof. Giacomo Rizzolatti (University of Parma), who originally discovered them, and the implications to our understanding of the evolution of brain, mind and communicative interaction in non-human primates and man.(Series B)
Corticospinal Function and Voluntary Movement
Author: Robert Porter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1995
Total Pages: 428
ISBN-13: 9780198523758
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book focuses on the functions of corticospinal projections in the primate brain. Recent observations concerning the details of the cortico-cortical connections which contribute to the determination of these functions are presented in this volume. The details of cell-to-cell connectivity which allows corticospinal neurones to influence selectively the behaviors of individual motor units in the hands of both monkeys and humans are also covered. The experimental observations are dealt with against an historical background of histological and electrical examination of the motor areas of the cerebral cortex of humans, and the clinical significance of recent observations is discussed in connection with studies of the functions of the human brain during voluntary execution of movement, revealed by such techniques as positron emission tomography (PET). Neuroanatomical and neurophysiological details are correlated with measures of dexterity in movement performance and also used to account for the deficits in movement control which follow stroke, the learning of skill in movement performance and the rehabilitation of movement capacity after brain injury and disease.
The Myth of Mirror Neurons: The Real Neuroscience of Communication and Cognition
Author: Gregory Hickok
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2014-08-18
Total Pages: 251
ISBN-13: 0393244164
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn essential reconsideration of one of the most far-reaching theories in modern neuroscience and psychology. In 1992, a group of neuroscientists from Parma, Italy, reported a new class of brain cells discovered in the motor cortex of the macaque monkey. These cells, later dubbed mirror neurons, responded equally well during the monkey’s own motor actions, such as grabbing an object, and while the monkey watched someone else perform similar motor actions. Researchers speculated that the neurons allowed the monkey to understand others by simulating their actions in its own brain. Mirror neurons soon jumped species and took human neuroscience and psychology by storm. In the late 1990s theorists showed how the cells provided an elegantly simple new way to explain the evolution of language, the development of human empathy, and the neural foundation of autism. In the years that followed, a stream of scientific studies implicated mirror neurons in everything from schizophrenia and drug abuse to sexual orientation and contagious yawning. In The Myth of Mirror Neurons, neuroscientist Gregory Hickok reexamines the mirror neuron story and finds that it is built on a tenuous foundation—a pair of codependent assumptions about mirror neuron activity and human understanding. Drawing on a broad range of observations from work on animal behavior, modern neuroimaging, neurological disorders, and more, Hickok argues that the foundational assumptions fall flat in light of the facts. He then explores alternative explanations of mirror neuron function while illuminating crucial questions about human cognition and brain function: Why do humans imitate so prodigiously? How different are the left and right hemispheres of the brain? Why do we have two visual systems? Do we need to be able to talk to understand speech? What’s going wrong in autism? Can humans read minds? The Myth of Mirror Neurons not only delivers an instructive tale about the course of scientific progress—from discovery to theory to revision—but also provides deep insights into the organization and function of the human brain and the nature of communication and cognition.
Handbook of the Neuroscience of Language
Author: Brigitte Stemmer
Publisher: Academic Press
Published: 2008-04-29
Total Pages: 505
ISBN-13: 0080564917
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn the last ten years the neuroscience of language has matured as a field. Ten years ago, neuroimaging was just being explored for neurolinguistic questions, whereas today it constitutes a routine component. At the same time there have been significant developments in linguistic and psychological theory that speak to the neuroscience of language. This book consolidates those advances into a single reference. The Handbook of the Neuroscience of Language provides a comprehensive overview of this field. Divided into five sections, section one discusses methods and techniques including clinical assessment approaches, methods of mapping the human brain, and a theoretical framework for interpreting the multiple levels of neural organization that contribute to language comprehension. Section two discusses the impact imaging techniques (PET, fMRI, ERPs, electrical stimulation of language cortex, TMS) have made to language research. Section three discusses experimental approaches to the field, including disorders at different language levels in reading as well as writing and number processing. Additionally, chapters here present computational models, discuss the role of mirror systems for language, and cover brain lateralization with respect to language. Part four focuses on language in special populations, in various disease processes, and in developmental disorders. The book ends with a listing of resources in the neuroscience of language and a glossary of items and concepts to help the novice become acquainted with the field. Editors Stemmer & Whitaker prepared this book to reflect recent developments in neurolinguistics, moving the book squarely into the cognitive neuroscience of language and capturing the developments in the field over the past 7 years. - History section focuses on topics that play a current role in neurolinguistics research, aphasia syndromes, and lesion analysis - Includes section on neuroimaging to reflect the dramatic changes in methodology over the past decade - Experimental and clinical section reflects recent developments in the field
How the Brain Got Language
Author: Michael A. Arbib
Publisher: OUP USA
Published: 2012-04-11
Total Pages: 436
ISBN-13: 0199896682
DOWNLOAD EBOOKUnlike any other species, humans can learn and use language. This book explains how the brain evolved to make language possible, through what Michael Arbib calls the Mirror System Hypothesis. Because of mirror neurons, monkeys, chimps, and humans can learn by imitation, but only "complex imitation," which humans exhibit, is powerful enough to support the breakthrough to language. This theory provides a path from the openness of manual gesture, which we share with nonhuman primates, through the complex imitation of manual skills, pantomime, protosign (communication based on conventionalized manual gestures), and finally to protospeech. The theory explains why we humans are as capable of learning sign languages as we are of learning to speak. This fascinating book shows how cultural evolution took over from biological evolution for the transition from protolanguage to fully fledged languages. The author explains how the brain mechanisms that made the original emergence of languages possible, perhaps 100,000 years ago, are still operative today in the way children acquire language, in the way that new sign languages have emerged in recent decades, and in the historical processes of language change on a time scale from decades to centuries. Though the subject is complex, this book is highly readable, providing all the necessary background in primatology, neuroscience, and linguistics to make the book accessible to a general audience.
The Cognitive Neurosciences
Author: Michael S. Gazzaniga
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2009-09-18
Total Pages: 1377
ISBN-13: 026201341X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"The fourth edition of The Cognitive Neurosciences continues to chart new directions in the study of the biologic underpinnings of complex cognition - the relationship between the structural and physiological mechanisms of the nervous system and the psychological reality of the mind. The material in this edition is entirely new, with all chapters written specifically for it." --Book Jacket.
Shared Representations
Author: Sukhvinder S. Obhi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2016-11-17
Total Pages: 699
ISBN-13: 1107050200
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA collection of cutting-edge contributions on the idea of shared representations - information sharing between the brains of those involved.
