TY - JOUR
T1 - Continuous Theta-Burst Stimulation Demonstrates a Causal Role of Premotor Homunculus in Action Understanding
AU - Michael, John
AU - Sandberg, Kristian
AU - Skewes, Joshua
AU - Wolf, Thomas
AU - Blicher, Jakob
AU - Overgaard, Morten
AU - Frith, Chris D.
PY - 2014/4
Y1 - 2014/4
N2 - Although it is well established that regions of premotor cortex (PMC) are active during action observation, it remains controversial whether they play a causal role in action understanding. In the experiment reported here, we used off-line continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) to investigate this question. Participants received cTBS over the hand and lip areas of left PMC, in separate sessions, before completing a pantomime-recognition task in which half of the trials contained pantomimed hand actions, and half contained pantomimed mouth actions. The results reveal a double dissociation: Participants were less accurate in recognizing pantomimed hand actions after receiving cTBS over the hand area than over the lip area and less accurate in recognizing pantomimed mouth actions after receiving cTBS over the lip area than over the hand area. This finding constrains theories of action understanding by showing that somatotopically organized regions of PMC contribute causally to action understanding and, thus, that the mechanisms underpinning action understanding and action performance overlap.
AB - Although it is well established that regions of premotor cortex (PMC) are active during action observation, it remains controversial whether they play a causal role in action understanding. In the experiment reported here, we used off-line continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) to investigate this question. Participants received cTBS over the hand and lip areas of left PMC, in separate sessions, before completing a pantomime-recognition task in which half of the trials contained pantomimed hand actions, and half contained pantomimed mouth actions. The results reveal a double dissociation: Participants were less accurate in recognizing pantomimed hand actions after receiving cTBS over the hand area than over the lip area and less accurate in recognizing pantomimed mouth actions after receiving cTBS over the lip area than over the hand area. This finding constrains theories of action understanding by showing that somatotopically organized regions of PMC contribute causally to action understanding and, thus, that the mechanisms underpinning action understanding and action performance overlap.
KW - action understanding
KW - mirror-neuron system
KW - social cognition
KW - social interaction
KW - social perception
KW - theory of mind
KW - theta-burst stimulation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84898840741&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0956797613520608
DO - 10.1177/0956797613520608
M3 - Article
C2 - 24549297
AN - SCOPUS:84898840741
SN - 0956-7976
VL - 25
SP - 963
EP - 972
JO - Psychological Science
JF - Psychological Science
IS - 4
ER -