ArticleCurrent biology : CB2013
M1 corticospinal mirror neurons and their role in movement suppression during action observation.
Article in Current biology : CB, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05273229 (Effectiveness of Virtual Gait System Intervention in Motor Function in Older People.), which is not on this map. Cited by 103 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Effectiveness of Virtual Gait System Intervention in Motor Function in Older People.
Who cites it
103 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 220 citations in OpenAlex.
- Recruitment of the motor system during music listening: An ALE meta-analysis of fMRI data.PloS one · 2018Pooled it
- Effect of a virtual walking and exercise-based intervention on muscle strength and activation in people with incomplete spinal cord injury.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Effectiveness of virtual-walking intervention combined with exercise on improving pain and function in incomplete spinal cord injury: a feasibility study.Spinal cord series and cases · 2024Trial
- Effect of virtual running with exercise on functionality in pre-frail and frail elderly people: randomized clinical trial.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2023Trial
- Activity in primary motor cortex during action observation covaries with subsequent behavioral changes in execution.Brain and behavior · 2016Trial
- Not quite there: skill consolidation in training by doing or observing.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2016Trial
- Observing a movement correction during walking affects evoked responses but not unperturbed walking.PloS one · 2014Trial
- Article
- Observation-related activity in the human motor cortex increases with effector anthropomorphicity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Hierarchical and context-dependent encoding of actions in human posterior parietal and motor cortex.Cell · 2026Article
- Dynamic population coding of kinematic structure across executed and observed actions in primate premotor cortex.Science advances · 2026Article
- Action observation responses in macaque frontal cortex.Neuroimage. Reports · 2026Article
- Implementation of an Intervention Program Based on Virtual Walking and Therapeutic Exercise in Cuba: A Feasibility Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- GABAergic and glutamatergic mechanisms of cortical excitability shape motor resonance during action observation as measured by transcranial magnetic stimulation.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Hierarchical and Context-Dependent Encoding of Actions in Human Posterior Parietal and Motor Cortex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Mapping neural subspace dynamics onto the structure of the mouse descending motor system.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Disentangling indirect versus direct effects of somatosensory cortex microstimulation on neurons in primary motor and ventral premotor cortex.Journal of neural engineering · 2025Article
- Article
- Progressively shifting patterns of co-modulation among premotor cortex neurons carry dynamically similar signals during action execution and observation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Mirror Neurons in Monkey Frontal and Parietal Areas.Scientific data · 2025Article
43 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Evidence is accumulating that neurons in primary motor cortex (M1) respond during action observation, a property first shown for mirror neurons in monkey premotor cortex. We now show for the first time that the discharge of a major class of M1 output neuron, the pyramidal tract neuron (PTN), is modulated during observation of precision grip by a human experimenter. We recorded 132 PTNs in the hand area of two adult macaques, of which 65 (49%) showed mirror-like activity. Many (38 of 65) increased their discharge during observation (facilitation-type mirror neuron), but a substantial number (27 of 65) exhibited reduced discharge or stopped firing (suppression-type). Simultaneous recordings from arm, hand, and digit muscles confirmed the complete absence of detectable muscle activity during observation. We compared the discharge of the same population of neurons during active grasp by the monkeys. We found that facilitation neurons were only half as active for action observation as for action execution, and that suppression neurons reversed their activity pattern and were actually facilitated during execution. Thus, although many M1 output neurons are active during action observation, M1 direct input to spinal circuitry is either reduced or abolished and may not be sufficient to produce overt muscle activity.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.