Monia Cabinio1,2, Gabriella Cerri3,
Paola Borroni4, Valeria Blasi1, Antonella Iadanza1,
Andrea Falini1,2
1Neuroradiology - CERMAC,
San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy; 2Vita-Salute San
Raffaele University, Milan, Italy; 3Department of Human
Physiology, University of Milan, Milan, Italy; 4Department of
Medicine, Surgery & Dental Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
Mirror Neurons are bimodal neurons active both during action observation and execution. In humans the observation of actions induces the activation of a fronto-parietal network (Mirror Neuron System, MNS). Some authors found that BA44, a fundamental language area, is part of the MNS. This evidence lead to the hypothesis that MNS is important in the evolution of language. However this data is controversial. With this work we assess if BA44 is active during observation/execution of hand and mouth movements. We did not find activation of BA44 for hand actions and only a minimal, if any, involvement for mouth actions, thus challenging the over mentioned theory.
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