Authors: Kristine M Knutson Erin M McClellan Jordan Grafman
Publish Date: 2008/05/15
Volume: 188, Issue: 2, Pages: 187-198
Abstract
We investigated the effects of social content of gestures on brain activation patterns We used a 3 × 3 × 3 factorial design in an eventrelated functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment with participants observing gestures varied by type fascist salute wave or arm lift number of images shown at a time and face frequency We sought to determine whether increasing the social content of the gesture spreads activation from traditional sensorimotor regions engaged in mirror neuron activity to prefrontal regions concerned with social behavior Results indicate that viewing a highly provocative gesture fascist salute compared to a less provocative but still socially meaningful gesture wave reveals activation in prefrontal and limbic areas In addition as expected there was more inferior frontal gyrus activation when participants observed a greater number of gesturing actors Additionally the psychological characteristics of shame and defeat affected activation in the inferior parietal lobe which is part of the mirror neuron system for the fascist salute compared to the wave contrast We conclude that observing social gestures activates social and emotionprocessing areas of the brain and the activation varies depending on the observer’s psychological characteristicsThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Center for Biological and Computational Learning provided the database of facial images The authors have no conflict of interest Funding This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
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