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The representing brain: Neural correlates of motor intention and imagery

Jeannerod, Marc (1994) The representing brain: Neural correlates of motor intention and imagery.

Short Abstract:

This target article concerns how motor actions are neurally represented and coded. Action planning and motor preparation can be studied using motor imagery. A close functional equivalence between motor imagery and motor preparation is suggested by the positive effects of imagining movements on motor learning, the similarity between the neural structures involved, and the similar physiological correlates observed in both imagining and preparing. The content of motor representations can be inferred from motor images at a macroscopic level: from global aspects of the action (the duration and amount of effort involved) and from the motor rules and constraints which predict the spatial path and kinematics of movements. A microscopic neural account of the represenation of object-oriented action is described. Object attributes are processed in different neural pathways depending on the kind of task the subject is performing. During object-oriented action, a pragmatic representation is activated in which object affordances are transformed into specific motor schemata independently of other tasks such as object recognition. Animal as well as clinical data implicate posterior parietal and premotor cortical areas in schema instantiation. A mechanism is proposed that is able to encode the desired goal of the action and is applicable to different levels of representational organization.

Long Abstract:

This target article concerns how motor actions are neurally represented and coded. Action planning and motor preparation can be studied using motor imagery. A close functional equivalence between motor imagery and motor preparation is suggested by the positive effects of imagining movements on motor learning, the similarity between the neural structures involved, and the similar physiological correlates observed in both imagining and preparing. The content of motor representations can be inferred from motor images at a macroscopic level: from global aspects of the action (the duration and amount of effort involved) and from the motor rules and constraints which predict the spatial path and kinematics of movements. A microscopic neural account of the represenation of object-oriented action is described. Object attributes are processed in different neural pathways depending on the kind of task the subject is performing. During object-oriented action, a pragmatic representation is activated in which object affordances are transformed into specific motor schemata independently of other tasks such as object recognition. Animal as well as clinical data implicate posterior parietal and premotor cortical areas in schema instantiation. A mechanism is proposed that is able to encode the desired goal of the action and is applicable to different levels of representational organization.

Keywords:	affordances, goals, intention, motor imagery, motor schemata, neural codes, object manipulation, planning, posterior parietal cortex, premotor cortex, representation.
Subjects:	Psychology: Cognitive Psychology Neuroscience: Neuroanatomy Neuroscience: Neural Modelling Neuroscience: Motor Function Neuroscience: Neurophysiology Psychology: Perceptual Cognitive Psychology
ID code:	bbs00000535
Deposited by:	Marc Jeannerod on 02 May 2001