Continuous Theta-Burst Stimulation Demonstrates a Causal Role of Premotor Homunculus in Action Understanding

摘要: Although it is well established that regions of premotor cortex (PMC) are active during action observation, remains controversial whether they play a causal role in understanding. In the experiment reported here, we used off-line continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) to investigate this question. Participants received cTBS over hand and lip areas left PMC, separate sessions, before completing pantomime-recognition task which half trials contained pantomimed actions, mouth actions. The results reveal double dissociation: were less accurate recognizing actions after receiving area than area. This finding constrains theories understanding by showing somatotopically organized PMC contribute causally and, thus, mechanisms underpinning performance overlap.