TY  - JOUR
JF  - Human Brain Mapping
IS  - 10
Y1  - 2015///
SP  - 3832
PB  - Wiley
A1  - Handjaras, Giacomo
A1  - Bernardi, Giulio
A1  - Benuzzi, Francesca
A1  - Nichelli, Paolo
A1  - Pietrini, Pietro
A1  - Ricciardi, Emiliano
VL  - 36
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hbm.22881
KW  - action representation
KW  -  action topography
KW  -  pattern classification
KW  -  fMRI
KW  -  multivariate analysis
AV  - none
TI  - A topographical organization for action representation in the human brain
N2  - How the human brain represents distinct motor features into a unique finalized action still remains undefined. Previous models proposed the distinct features of a motor act to be hierarchically organized in separated, but functionally interconnected, cortical areas. Here, we hypothesized that distinct patterns across a wide expanse of cortex may actually subserve a topographically organized coding of different categories of actions that represents, at a higher cognitive level and independently from the distinct motor features, the action and its final aim as a whole. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and pattern classification approaches on the neural responses of 14 right-handed individuals passively watching short movies of hand-performed tool-mediated, transitive, and meaningful intransitive actions, we were able to discriminate with a high accuracy and characterize the category-specific response patterns. Actions are distinctively coded in distributed and overlapping neural responses within an action-selective network, comprising frontal, parietal, lateral occipital and ventrotemporal regions. This functional organization, that we named action topography, subserves a higher-level and more abstract representation of finalized actions and has the capacity to provide unique representations for multiple categories of actions. Hum Brain Mapp 36:3832?3844, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
SN  - 1065-9471
EP  - 3844
N1  - Open Access article - Fulltext on publisher's website
ID  - eprints2863
ER  -