Enhancing putative mirror neuron activity with magnetic stimulation: a single-case functional neuroimaging study.
نویسندگان
چکیده
M irror neuron-driven embodied simulation, based on the neural exploitation hypothesis has been proposed as a physiological basis of social cognitive abilities in humans (1). Experimental evidence points to a relationship between social cognition and putative mirror neuron activity in neuropsychiatric disorders like schizophrenia (2) and autism (3). Experiments to explore strategies to modulate mirror neuron activity (MNA) are rare (4). We are unaware of any previous report that applied targeted brain stimulation to improve functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activation during action observation paradigms, an indirect method of measuring MNA. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a safe, noninvasive method of administering targeted brain stimulation (5) to enhance focal brain activity. In this letter, we describe the first report of a single session of high-frequency repetitive TMS (HF-rTMS) delivered at the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) enhancing putative MNA as ascertained by functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
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عنوان ژورنال:
- Biological psychiatry
دوره 74 3 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2013