Influence of perspective on the neural correlates of motor resonance during natural action observation

Abstract

We investigated the neural correlates of motor resonance during the observation of natural transitive actions and determined how the observer's perspective modulates the neural activation. Seventeen right-handed participants observed right and left hand tool grasping actions from a first-person or third-person perspective while undergoing fMRI. A two-factorial analysis of variance over the parietal region revealed no main effects of hand identity or perspective, but unveiled a hand by perspective interaction effect. The first-person perspective elicited parietal activation in the hemisphere contralateral to the performing hand as if the modelled action was mimicked with the same anatomical hand. In the third-person perspective, parietal activation ipsilateral to the modelled hand was found, indicating a specular strategy, rather than an anatomical imitation. Motor resonance was maximal in three foci in the superior parietal lobule and intraparietal sulcus that have been associated with prehensile actions. Our results suggest that therapeutic strategies aimed to elicit motor resonance, such as motor imagery and observational modelling, can adjust their spatial frame of reference according to the hemisphere they intend to stimulate.