Publication Date:
2002-08-06
Description:
Many object-related actions can be recognized by their sound. We found neurons in monkey premotor cortex that discharge when the animal performs a specific action and when it hears the related sound. Most of the neurons also discharge when the monkey observes the same action. These audiovisual mirror neurons code actions independently of whether these actions are performed, heard, or seen. This discovery in the monkey homolog of Broca's area might shed light on the origin of language: audiovisual mirror neurons code abstract contents-the meaning of actions-and have the auditory access typical of human language to these contents.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Kohler, Evelyne -- Keysers, Christian -- Umilta, M Alessandra -- Fogassi, Leonardo -- Gallese, Vittorio -- Rizzolatti, Giacomo -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2002 Aug 2;297(5582):846-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Istituto di Fisiologia Umana, Universita di Parma, Italy., Dipartimento di Psicologia, Universita di Parma, Italy.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12161656" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Acoustic Stimulation
;
Analysis of Variance
;
Animals
;
Auditory Perception/*physiology
;
Biological Evolution
;
Electrophysiology
;
Hearing/*physiology
;
Humans
;
Language
;
Macaca/*physiology
;
Motor Cortex/cytology/*physiology
;
Neurons/*physiology
;
Nuts
;
Photic Stimulation
;
*Sound
;
Visual Perception/physiology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
Permalink