I Know What You Are Doing
Open accessAbstract
In the ventral premotor cortex of the macaque monkey, there are neurons that discharge both during the execution of hand actions and during the observation of the same actions made by others (mirror neurons). In the present study, we show that a subset of mirror neurons becomes active during action presentation and also when the final part of the action, crucial in triggering the response in full vision, is hidden and can therefore only be inferred. This implies that the motor representation of an action performed by others can be internally generated in the observer's premotor cortex, even when a visual description of the action is lacking. The present findings support the hypothesis that mirror neuron activation could be at the basis of action recognition.
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Monkey mirror neuron responses start around 250 ms after observed movement onset.
“MN responses start around 250ms after observed movement onset”
From Mirror neurons: from origin to function (2014) · cites this paper as Umilta et al., 2001
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- Authors
- Umiltà, M. A., Kohler, E., Gallese, V., Fogassi, L., Fadiga, L., Keysers, C., & Rizzolatti, G.
- Affiliations
- University of Parma (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Rizzolatti, G.
- Venue
- Neuron
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2001-07
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 155-165
- ISSN
- 0896-6273 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2047509178
- Cited by
- 1,192
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 55 · 2018: 47 · 2017: 48 · 2016: 46 · 2015: 55 · 2014: 71 · 2013: 63 · 2012: 70
- FWCI
- 39.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Neuron (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Institutional Research Information System University of Ferrara (University of Ferrara) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Motor Control and Adaptation
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Keywords
- mirror neurons, ventral premotor cortex, action observation, human action recognition, action understanding, motor representations, visual description, macaque, social cognition
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Electric Stimulation, Female, Habituation, Psychophysiologic, Hand, Humans, Macaca nemestrina, Male, Models, Neurological, Models, Psychological, Motor Activity, Motor Cortex, Movement, Neurons, Psychomotor Performance, Somatosensory Cortex, Visual Perception, Hand Strength, Recognition, Psychology
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