eprintid: 2865
rev_number: 10
eprint_status: archive
userid: 72
dir: disk0/00/00/28/65
datestamp: 2015-11-10 11:27:57
lastmod: 2016-09-13 09:47:52
status_changed: 2015-11-10 11:40:18
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Ricciardi, Emiliano
creators_name: Handjaras, Giacomo
creators_name: Bonino, Daniela
creators_name: Vecchi, Tomaso
creators_name: Fadiga, Luciano
creators_name: Pietrini, Pietro
creators_id: emiliano.ricciardi@imtlucca.it
creators_id: 
creators_id: 
creators_id: 
creators_id: 
creators_id: pietro.pietrini@imtlucca.it
title: Beyond motor scheme: a supramodal distributed representation in the action-observation network
ispublished: pub
subjects: RC0321
divisions: CSA
full_text_status: public
abstract: The representation of actions within the action-observation network is thought to rely on a distributed functional organization. Furthermore, recent findings indicate that the action-observation network encodes not merely the observed motor act, but rather a representation that is independent from a specific sensory modality or sensory experience. In the present study, we wished to determine to what extent this distributed and ‘more abstract’ representation of action is truly supramodal, i.e. shares a common coding across sensory modalities. To this aim, a pattern recognition approach was employed to analyze neural responses in sighted and congenitally blind subjects during visual and/or auditory presentation of hand-made actions. Multivoxel pattern analyses-based classifiers discriminated action from non-action stimuli across sensory conditions (visual and auditory) and experimental groups (blind and sighted). Moreover, these classifiers labeled as ‘action’ the pattern of neural responses evoked during actual motor execution. Interestingly, discriminative information for the action/non action classification was located in a bilateral, but left-prevalent, network that strongly overlaps with brain regions known to form the action-observation network and the human mirror system. The ability to identify action features with a multivoxel pattern analyses-based classifier in both sighted and blind individuals and independently from the sensory modality conveying the stimuli clearly supports the hypothesis of a supramodal, distributed functional representation of actions, mainly within the action-observation network.
date: 2013-03-05
publication: PloS One
volume: 8
number: 3
publisher: Public Library of Science
id_number: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058632
refereed: TRUE
issn: 1932-6203
official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0058632
related_url_url: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0058632
related_url_type: pub
citation:   Ricciardi, Emiliano and Handjaras, Giacomo and Bonino, Daniela and Vecchi, Tomaso and Fadiga, Luciano and Pietrini, Pietro  Beyond motor scheme: a supramodal distributed representation in the action-observation network.  PloS One, 8 (3).   ISSN 1932-6203      (2013)  
document_url: http://eprints.imtlucca.it/2865/1/journal.pone.0058632.pdf