time of language evaluation on the 8th day after onset, the patient manifested relatively fluent utterances, and intact auditory comprehension, repetition, and naming abilities. He was able to read simple, short sentences without mirror reading. However, mirror writing with his intact left hand was observed for individual Korean graphemes when he wrote his name and address spontaneously, and al...

In the ventral premotor cortex (area F5) of the monkey there are neurons that discharge both when the monkey performs specific motor actions and when it observes another individual performing a similar action (mirror neurons). Previous studies on mirror neurons concerned hand actions. Here, we describe the mirror responses of F5 neurons that motorically code mouth actions. The results showed th...

Mirror neurons discharge during the execution of hand object-directed actions and during the observation of the same actions performed by other individuals. These neurons were first identified in the ventral premotor cortex (area F5) and later on in the inferior parietal lobule of monkey brain, thus constituting the mirror neuron system. More recently, mirror neurons for mouth object-directed a...

Observing other people in action reliably activates a network of regions across the human premotor, inferior parietal and middle temporal cortex (Caspers, Zilles, Laird, & Eickhoff, 2010). The frontal and parietal components of this network are widely believed to contain mirror neurons (Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia, 2010). The function of the human mirror neuron system (MNS) has been much debated, w...

We describe a case of hereditary congenital mirror movements (MMs) in a 76-year-old man, who after an ischemic stroke, had persistence of MMs in the paretic hand during voluntary movements of the contralateral arm. By using functional MR imaging to investigate the performance of motor and sensory tasks with the affected and the unaffected hands, we found evidence for increased ipsilateral prima...

Mirror writing is an unusual script, in which the writing runs in the opposite direction to normal, with individual letters reversed, so that it is most easily read using a mirror. This writing is seen in healthy individuals; it is also associated with various focal lesions that most commonly involve the left hemisphere, as well as with certain diffuse cerebral disorders. Mirror writing is near...

Animal social learning has become a subject of broad interest, but demonstrations of bodily imitation in animals remain rare. Based on Voelkl and Huber's study of imitation by marmosets, we tested four groups of semi-captive vervet monkeys presented with food in modified film canisters ("aethipops'). One individual was trained to take the tops off canisters in each group and demonstrated five o...

Both motor imagery and mirror training have been used in motor rehabilitation settings to promote skill learning and plasticity. As motor imagery and mirror training are suggested to be closely linked, it was hypothesized that mirror training augmented by motor imagery would increase corticospinal excitability (CSE) significantly compared to mirror training alone. Forty-four participants were s...

The premotor and parietal mirror neuron system (MNS) is thought to contribute to the understanding of observed actions by mapping them onto "corresponding" motor programs of the observer [1-24], but how would the MNS respond to the observation of hand actions if the observer never had hands? Would it not show changes of blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal, because the observer lacks moto...

This article argues for the gestural origins of speech and language based on the available evidence gathered in humans and nonhuman primates and especially from ape studies. The strong link between motor functions (hand use and manual gestures) and speech in humans is reviewed. The presence of asymmetrical cerebral organization in nonhuman primates along with functional asymmetries in the perce...