Action observation activates neurons of the monkey ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.

ABSTRACT: Prefrontal cortex is crucial for exploiting contextual information for the planning and guidance of behavioral responses. Among contextual cues, those provided by others' behavior are particularly important, in primates, for selecting appropriate reactions and suppressing the inappropriate ones. These latter functions deeply rely on the ability to understand others' actions. However, it is largely unknown whether prefrontal neurons are activated by action observation. To address this issue, we recorded the activity of ventrolateral prefrontal (VLPF) neurons of macaque monkeys during the observation of videos depicting biological movements performed by a monkey or a human agent, and object motion. Our results show that a population of VLPF neurons respond to the observation of biological mo

SUBMITTER: Simone L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5349536 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature