Secondary somatosensory and posterior insular cortices: a somatomotor hub for object prehension and manipulation movements.

The secondary somatosensory cortex (SII) and posterior insular cortex (pIC) are recognized for processing touch and movement information during hand manipulation in humans and non-human primates. However, their involvement in three-dimensional (3D) object manipulation remains unclear. To investigate neural activity related to hand manipulation in the SII/pIC, we trained two macaque monkeys to grasp three objects (a cone, a plate, and a ring) and engage in visual fixation on the object.

Spatial and viewpoint selectivity for others' observed actions in monkey ventral premotor mirror neurons.

The spatial location and viewpoint of observed actions are closely linked in natural social settings. For example, actions observed from a subjective viewpoint necessarily occur within the observer's peripersonal space. Neurophysiological studies have shown that mirror neurons (MNs) of the monkey ventral premotor area F5 can code the spatial location of live observed actions.

The extended object-grasping network.

Grasping is the most important skilled motor act of primates. It is based on a series of sensorimotor transformations through which the affordances of the objects to be grasped are transformed into appropriate hand movements. It is generally accepted that a circuit formed by inferior parietal areas AIP and PFG and ventral premotor area F5 represents the core circuit for sensorimotor transformations for grasping.

Extending the Cortical Grasping Network: Pre-supplementary Motor Neuron Activity During Vision and Grasping of Objects.

Grasping relies on a network of parieto-frontal areas lying on the dorsolateral and dorsomedial parts of the hemispheres. However, the initiation and sequencing of voluntary actions also requires the contribution of mesial premotor regions, particularly the pre-supplementary motor area F6. We recorded 233 F6 neurons from 2 monkeys with chronic linear multishank neural probes during reaching-grasping visuomotor tasks.

The Physiological Effect of Human Grooming on the Heart Rate and the Heart Rate Variability of Laboratory Non-Human Primates: A Pilot Study in Male Rhesus Monkeys.

Grooming is a widespread, essential, and complex behavior with social and affiliative valence in the non-human primate world. Its impact at the autonomous nervous system level has been studied during allogrooming among monkeys living in a semi-naturalistic environment. For the first time, we investigated the effect of human grooming to monkey in a typical experimental situation inside laboratory.

Multimodal Encoding of Goal-Directed Actions in Monkey Ventral Premotor Grasping Neurons.

Visuo-motor neurons of the ventral premotor area F5 encode "pragmatic" representations of object in terms of the potential motor acts (e.g., precision grip) afforded by it.

Predictive coding accounts of shared representations in parieto-insular networks.

The discovery of mirror neurons in the ventral premotor cortex (area F5) and inferior parietal cortex (area PFG) in the macaque monkey brain has provided the physiological evidence for direct matching of the intrinsic motor representations of the self and the visual image of the actions of others. The existence of mirror neurons implies that the brain has mechanisms reflecting shared self and other action representations. This may further imply that the neural basis self-body representations may also incorporate components that are shared with other-body representations.

Mirror neuron activation prior to action observation in a predictable context.

A fundamental capacity of social animals consists in the predictive representation of upcoming events in the outside world, such as the actions of others. Here, we tested the activity of ventral premotor area F5 mirror neurons (MNs) while monkeys observed an experimenter performing (Action condition) or withholding (Inaction condition) a grasping action, which could be predicted on the basis of previously presented auditory instructions. Many of the recorded MNs discharged only during action observation (Action MNs), but one-third also encoded the experimenter's withheld action (Inaction MNs).

Confounding the origin and function of mirror neurons.

Cook et al. argue that mirror neurons originate in sensorimotor associative learning and that their function is determined by their origin. Both these claims are hard to accept.

Monkey gaze behaviour during action observation and its relationship to mirror neuron activity.

Mirror neurons (MNs) of the monkey ventral premotor cortex (area F5) are a class of cells that match the visual descriptions of others' actions with correspondent motor representations in the observer's brain. Several human studies suggest that one's own motor representations activated during action observation play a role in directing proactive eye movements to the site of the upcoming hand-target interaction. However, there are no data on the possible relationship between gaze behaviour and MN activity.