Functional Imaging of the Parietal Cortex during

Action Execution and Observation

http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/3/624
Mina N. Evangeliou1, Vassilis Raos1, Claudio Galletti2 and Helen E. Savaki1
1
Department of Basic Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, School of Health Sciences,
University of Crete and Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics,
Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas, Greece, 2 Dipartimento di Fisiologia
Umana e Generale, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

Address correspondence to Professor Helen E. Savaki, Department of Basic Sciences,

Faculty of Medicine, School of Health Sciences, University of Crete, P.O. Box 2208,
GR-71003, Iraklion, Crete, Greece. Email: savaki@med.uoc.gr .

We used the 14C-deoxyglucose method to map the functional activity in the cortex of the
lateral and medial parietal convexity, the intraparietal and the parietoccipital sulci of
monkeys which either reached and grasped a 3D-object or observed the same reaching-
to-grasp movements executed by a human. Execution of reaching-to-grasp induced
activations in the superior parietal areas SI-forelimb/convexity, PE, PE caudal (PEc); in
the intraparietal areas PE intraparietal (PEip), medial intraparietal (MIP), 5 intraparietal
posterior, ventral intraparietal (VIP), anterior intraparietal (AIP), lateral intraparietal
dorsal; in the inferior parietal areas PF, PFG, PG; in the parietoccipital areas V6, V6A-
dorsal; in the medial cortical areas PGm/7m and retrosplenial cortex. Observation of
reaching-to-grasp activated areas SI-forelimb/convexity, PE lateral, PEc, PEip, MIP,
VIP, AIP, PF, V6, PGm/7m, 31, and retrosplenial cortex. The common activations were
stronger for execution than for observation and the interhemispheric differences were
smaller for observation than for execution, contributing to the attribution of action to the
correct agent. The extensive overlap of parietal networks activated for action execution
and observation supports the "mental simulation theory" which assigns the role of
understanding others’ actions to the entire distributed neural network responsible for the
execution of actions, and not the concept of "mirroring" which reflects the function of a
certain class of cells in a couple of cortical areas.