The human mirror neuron system (hMNS) is believed to provide a basic mechanism for social cognition. Event-related desynchronization (ERD) in alpha (8-12Hz) and low beta band (12-20Hz) over sensori-motor cortex has been suggested to index mirror neurons' activity. We tested whether autistic traits revealed by high and low scores on the Autistic Quotient (AQ) in the normal population are linked to variations in the electroencephalogram (EEG) over motor, pre-motor cortex and supplementary motor area (SMA) during action observation. Results revealed that in the low AQ group, the pre-motor cortex and SMA were more active during hand action than static hand observation whereas in the high AQ group the same areas were active both during static and hand action observation. In fact participants with high traits of autism showed greater low beta ERD while observing the static hand than those with low traits and this low beta ERD was not significantly different when they watched hand actions. Over primary motor cortex, the classical alpha and low beta ERD during hand actions relative to static hand observation was found across all participants. These findings suggest that the observation-execution matching system works differently according to the degree of autism traits in the normal population and that this is differentiated in terms of the EEG according to scalp site and bandwidth.
Pubmed ID: 20435023 RIS Download
Publication data is provided by the National Library of Medicine ® and PubMed ®. Data is retrieved from PubMed ® on a weekly schedule. For terms and conditions see the National Library of Medicine Terms and Conditions.
THIS RESOURCE IS NO LONGER IN SERVICE. Documented on March 17, 2022. A large-scale database of genetics and genomics data associated to a web-interface and a set of methods and algorithms that can be used for mining the data in it. The database contains two categories of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) annotations: # Physical-based annotation where SNPs are categorized according to their position relative to genes (intronic, inter-genic, etc.) and according to linkage disequilibrium (LD) patterns (an inter-genic SNP can be annotated to a gene if it is in LD with variation in the gene). # Functional annotation where SNPs are classified according to their effects on expression levels, i.e. whether they are expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) for that gene. SCAN can be utilized in several ways including: (i) queries of the SNP and gene databases; (ii) analysis using the attached tools and algorithms; (iii) downloading files with SNP annotation for various GWA platforms. . eQTL files and reported GWAS from NHGRI may be downloaded.
View all literature mentions