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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on January 19, 2009
Cerebral Cortex 2009 19(10):2338-2351; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn251
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The Brain's Intention to Imitate: The Neurobiology of Intentional versus Automatic Imitation

Nina Bien, Alard Roebroeck, Rainer Goebel and Alexander T. Sack

Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht University, 6200 MD, Maastricht, the Netherlands

Address correspondence to Dr Nina Bien, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, the Netherlands. Email: nina.bien{at}psychology.unimaas.nl.

Whenever we observe a movement of a conspecific, our mirror neuron system becomes activated, urging us to imitate the observed movement. However, because such automatic imitation is not always appropriate, an inhibitive component keeping us from imitating everything we see seems crucial for an effective social behavior. This becomes evident from neuropsychological conditions like echopraxia, in which this suppression is absent. Here, we unraveled the neurodynamics underlying this proposed inhibition of automatic imitation by measuring and manipulating brain activity during the execution of a stimulus–response compatibility paradigm. Within the identified connectivity network, right middle/inferior frontal cortex sends neural input concerning general response inhibition to right premotor cortex, which is involved in automatic imitation. Subsequently, the fully prepared imitative response is sent to left opercular cortex that functions as a final gating mechanism for intentional imitation. We propose an informed neurocognitive model of inhibition of automatic imitation, suggesting a functional dissociation between automatic and intentional imitation.

Key Words: fMRI • imitation • mirror neurons • response inhibition • TMS


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