Multisensory

Vision improves the sense of touch by presetting sensory brain areas.
Healthy subjects first view either their finger, or a neutral object appearing at the same location via a mirror. A dark interval follows, during which the subject may receive a pulse of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the primary somatosensory cortex. This temporarily disturbs the brain areas responsible for touch. Shortly afterwards, the subject is touched on the fingertip by a plastic grating, whose lines are oriented either along or across the finger at random.
Results show that the sense of touch is improved by previously viewing the body: judgements the orientation of the touch stimulus are more accurate than after viewing the neutral object. However, this effect is abolished by TMS in the interval between vision and touch. We conclude that viewing one's own body presets the brain areas responsible for touch.

Brain mechanisms of action observation
Expert ballet and capoeira dancers were given fMRI brain scans while watching both classical ballet moves or capoeira moves . A network of brain areas, including premotor cortex, intraparietal sulcus and superior temporal sulcus, and jointly known as the 'mirror system' were activated while observing these actions. Further, these areas were more active when dancers watched moves in their own style, that they could do themselves, than moves that they did not perform. Although both groups of dancers SAW the same stimuli, the brain response depended on the dancers' personal MOTOR repertoire. The human mirror system interpets observed actions in terms of the observer's possible actions. These activations were found in the left hemisphere system (A), in (1) ventral premotor, (2) dorsal premotor, (3) intraparietal sulcus and (4) posterior superior temporal sulcus. In the right hemisphere (B) we show activations in (1) Superior parietal lobe and (2) intraparietal sulcus (see picture).

Ballet move	Capoeira move

Example Ballet Move	Example Capoeira Move

This page last modified 17 November, 2011 by [ICN Web Team]

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