Nonconscious motor images

Motor representations: One or many?

Two issues have been raised. The first concerns whether consciousness is attached to a given type of action. It is argued that purposive actions are represented before being executed and that motor representations can either remain implicit or become explicit according to the task. The second issue concerns whether or not mental imagery of action is independent from action. Recent evidence showing the commonality of neural mechanisms for motor imagery and action, respectively, goes against the idea of independent processes.

Response intention and imagery processes: Locus, interaction, and contribution to motor learning

By way of commentary on Jeannerod (1994), we propose that (1) intention, response imagery, and actual response processes carry equal weight in inferring from one process to another, (2) memory networks control intention, which interacts with imagery-based processing to control response imagery, and (3) response imagery will demonstrate learning effects better when imagery reconstruction and elaboration are emphasized and neutral retention tests are utilized.

Alternative origins of motor images

Jeannerod (1994) advocates studying motor images to understand the representation of action. We identify an unsettled issue that complicates the use of motor images to study the representation of action and present some evidence for a clear absence of equivalence between motor imagery and movement preparation. We then elaborate and emphasize the relevance of the mental practice literature, which was introduced in the first round of commentary. Finally, we suggest two methods that will allow motor imagery theorists to address these points.

In search of nonvisual motor images

Jeannerod's target article and a number of commentators stressed the necessity of distinguishing between motor representation and perceptual images. A patient with a lesion of the central somatosensory pathways allowed us to test for this distinction. The outcome suggests that motor images may not be visual and that the “pragmatic” framework proposed by Jeannerod for vision can apply to other sensory modalities.

Autism: a cognitive developmental riddle

It has been 60 years since the definitive descriptions of autism, yet it is only in the past decade that related advances in cognitive and basic neuroscience have begun to be incorporated in clinical practice. Some of the resultant clinical advances, which include a trend toward international standardization of diagnosis on the basis of behavioral criteria and which, in turn, seem to allow for earlier, more secure diagnosis and the application of behavioral therapy in early childhood, as well as more thorough genetic studies, are briefly reviewed. The three major defects in thought processing that are postulated by cognitive neuropsychologists to result in aberrant autistic behaviors are also reviewed and linked to recent functional imaging studies in autistic patients and some animal and bench research suggestive of both cortical and subcortical developmental vulnerabilities in autism. Overall it seems at least possible that neuroscientific research may yield results applicable to prevention or remediation of autism, a condition heretofore considered irremediable.

Observation-execution matching system for speech: a magnetic stimulation study

Observation of limb movements in human subjects resulted in increased motor-evoked potential (MEP) amplitude elicited by magnetic stimulation of motor cortex in the muscles involved in that movement, suggesting that an observation-execution matching (OEM) system exists in humans. We investigated whether the OEM system is activated by speech gestures presented in the visual and auditory modalities. We found that visual observation of speech movement enhanced MEP amplitude specifically in muscles involved in production of the observed speech. In contrast, listening to the sound did not produce MEP enhancement. The findings suggest that the OEM system may be modality specific. It may be involved in action recognition in the visual modality, but is not responsible for perception of simple items of sound.

Mirror neurons, procedural learning, and the positive new experience: a developmental systems self psychology approach

In summary, we are impressed with the existence of a mirror neuron system in the prefrontal cortex that serves as part of a complex neural network, including afferent and efferent connections to the limbic system, in particular the amygdala, in addition to the premotor and motor cortex. We think it is possible to arrive at an integration that postulates the mirror neuron system and its many types of associated multimodal neurons as contributing significantly to implicit procedural learning, a process that underlies a range of complex nonconscious, unconscious, preconscious and conscious cognitive activities, from playing musical instruments to character formation and traumatic configurations. This type of brain circuitry may establish an external coherence with developmental systems self psychology which implies that positive new experience is meliorative and that the intentional revival of old-old traumatic relational configurations might enhance maladaptive procedural patterns that would lead to the opposite of the intended beneficial change. When analysts revive traumatic transference patterns for the purpose of clarification and interpretation, they may fail to appreciate that such traumatic transference patterns make interpretation ineffective because, as we have stated above, the patient lacks self-reflection under such traumatic conditions. The continued plasticity and immediacy of the mirror neuron system can contribute to positive new experiences that promote the formation of new, adaptive, implicit-procedural patterns. Perhaps this broadened repertoire in the patient of ways of understanding interrelational events through the psychoanalytic process allows the less adaptive patterns ultimately to become vestigial and the newer, more adaptive patterns to emerge as dominant. Finally, as we have stated, we believe that the intentional transferential revival of trauma (i.e., the old-old relational configuration) may not contribute to therapeutic benefit. In contrast, the revival of trauma in the old-new configuration (i.e., in the presence of a helpful other who can reduce anxiety and foster eventual positive new experience) can be beneficial, as trauma research has demonstrated. This is the process that promotes new implicit-procedural learning, new-new relational configurations, and a richer understanding of the self narrative.

Premotor cortex and the recognition of motor actions

In area F5 of the monkey premotor cortex there are neurons that discharge both when the monkey performs an action and when he observes a similar action made by another monkey or by the experimenter. We report here some of the properties of these 'mirror' neurons and we propose that their activity 'represents' the observed action. We posit, then, that this motor representation is at the basis of the understanding of motor events. Finally, on the basis of some recent data showing that, in man, the observation of motor actions activate the posterior part of inferior frontal gyrus, we suggest that the development of the lateral verbal communication system in man derives from a more ancient communication system based on recognition of hand and face gestures.