AI Article Synopsis
- The study investigates how our visual system interprets biological motion (like walking or running) while considering the effects of gravity, focusing on the brain regions involved.
- Researchers used fMRI to examine brain activity in participants viewing stick-figure animations in both normal and reduced gravity settings, finding increased activity in specific brain areas for reduced gravity conditions only with complete animations.
- The findings suggest that our brain utilizes predictive coding to understand how gravity affects motion, potentially involving specialized neurons that track and monitor actions.
Article Abstract
Our visual system takes into account the effects of Earth gravity to interpret biological motion (BM), but the neural substrates of this process remain unclear. Here we measured functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) signals while participants viewed intact or scrambled stick-figure animations of walking, running, hopping, and skipping recorded at normal or reduced gravity. We found that regions sensitive to BM configuration in the occipito-temporal cortex (OTC) were more active for reduced than normal gravity but with intact stimuli only. Effective connectivity analysis suggests that predictive coding of gravity effects underlies BM interpretation. This process might be implemented by a family of snapshot neurons involved in action monitoring.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.10.006 | DOI Listing |
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