Repetition Suppression Study of non-Mirroring Mirror Neurons Geoff Bird, Hannah Widmann, Clare Press, Caroline Catmur, James Kilner, Celia Heyes
Mirror Neurons and RS Pairs of Action Stimuli – Obs/Exe and Exe/Obs Cross modal RS for repeat vs non-repeat trials. 96 repetitions, 43mins, 10Ss, 16 slices on IFG. Kilner et al 2009, JoN
Alternative RS Design Unimodal (exe) study of action planning. 19 Ss, 4sec action execution event, 4sec rest. 36 trials (~5min) in total. Hamilton & Grafton 2008, HBM TRAINING Ob-exeXPre YPull Exe-obPreX PullY Ob-exeXPull YPre Exe-obPreY PullX Ob-exePre Pull Exe-obPre Pull Ob-exePrePull Pre Exe-obPrePull Pre SESSION 1 StimResp XPre YPull SESSION 3 Repeat Non-Repeat Ob-obXPre YPull PreX PullY Ob-obXPull YPre Y PullX SESSION 2 Non-Mirroring MNs & RS
Design 2 (Suppression: Long vs Short) x 2 (Repeat vs Novel) x 2 (ObsExe vs ExeObs) Aobs (250ms) Bexe (Jit 2secs) Bobs (250ms) Aexe (Jit 2 secs) Aexe (250ms) Bobs etc 8 conditions x 32 reps per cell = 256 trials x (1125ms mean gap duration + 750ms stim duration) = 8min 3 sessions = 24mins + 15mins = 39mins per subject (45mins) 45mins * 20subjects = 15hrs scanning time. Analysis – Full-Factorial ANOVA using SPM8. Contrast repeat vs non-repeat trials after long and short delays. Check to see whether obs/exe or exe/obs makes a difference. 32-channel head coil. Potentially reduce coverage for faster scanning (IFG?) Custom-built response apparatus – borrowed from James Kilner. 2secs