en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron
2 corrections found
In 2002 Christian Keysers and colleagues reported that, in both humans and monkeys, the mirror system also responds to the sound of actions.
This backdates the human finding. The 2002 study by Kohler, Keysers and colleagues reported auditory mirror neurons in monkeys; evidence for a human auditory mirror system was published later, in 2006.
Full reasoning
The sentence incorrectly says that in 2002 Keysers and colleagues reported auditory mirroring in both humans and monkeys.
What the 2002 paper actually reported was a monkey result: the PubMed record for Hearing sounds, understanding actions: action representation in mirror neurons states, "We found neurons in monkey premotor cortex that discharge when the animal performs a specific action and when it hears the related sound." That is a macaque single-neuron study, not a human study.
Evidence for a human auditory mirror system came later. The 2006 paper Empathy and the somatotopic auditory mirror system in humans states, "Using fMRI ... we show ... evidence for a human auditory mirror system." So the article's wording conflates two different findings from different years and makes it sound as if the human result was already reported in 2002, which it was not.
2 sources
- Hearing sounds, understanding actions: action representation in mirror neurons
Publication date: 2002 Aug 02 ... We found neurons in monkey premotor cortex that discharge when the animal performs a specific action and when it hears the related sound.
- Empathy and the somatotopic auditory mirror system in humans
2006 Sep 19 ... Using fMRI, we searched for brain areas that respond both during motor execution and when individuals listened to the sound of an action made by the same effector. We show ... evidence for a human auditory mirror system.
On the other hand, no one has to date looked for mirror neurons in the supplementary motor area or the medial temporal lobe in the monkey.
This is outdated. Published macaque studies have since recorded mirror-type neurons in medial/mesial premotor regions including the pre-supplementary motor area (F6), so it is no longer true that no one has looked there in monkeys.
Full reasoning
This sentence is no longer correct as written because later macaque studies did examine mirror-type activity in the supplementary-motor complex / medial frontal premotor cortex.
A 2011 study, Representation of others' action by neurons in monkey medial frontal cortex, reported neurons representing others' actions in macaque medial frontal cortex and noted that these neurons were especially prevalent in the region including the pre-supplementary motor area.
A later PNAS paper, Agent-based representations of objects and actions in the monkey pre-supplementary motor area (2019), went further and explicitly reported that macaque pre-supplementary motor area F6 contains neurons responding during both the monkey's own actions and another agent's actions; the paper describes these as showing the same response pattern as classical mirror neurons.
So while the statement may have reflected the state of the field around 2010, it is inaccurate on a current page because researchers have since looked in the monkey's medial/supplementary motor regions and found mirror-like or mirror-type neurons there.
2 sources
- Representation of others' action by neurons in monkey medial frontal cortex
These neurons ... were significantly more prevalent in the dorsomedial convexity region of the MFC including the pre-supplementary motor area than in the cingulate sulcus region of the MFC including the rostral cingulate motor area.
- Agent-based representations of objects and actions in the monkey pre-supplementary motor area
Here, we studied pre-supplementary motor area F6 neurons ... We found 'action-related neurons' encoding selectively monkey's own action, another agent's action, or both ... These latter neurons exhibited the same type of response pattern that characterizes classical mirror neurons.