ReviewNeuroscience2017
Two different mirror neuron networks: The sensorimotor (hand) and limbic (face) pathways.
Review in Neuroscience, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07184892 (Effects of Different Modes of Action Observation Therapy on Swallowing Function After Stroke), which is not on this map. Cited by 33 papers, 2 of them syntheses 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.
Effects of Different Modes of Action Observation Therapy on Swallowing Function After Stroke: a Study Based on fNIRS
Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 130 citations in OpenAlex.
- The shared neural substrates of emotional mimicry and emotional contagion: an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis and meta-analytic connectivity modeling analysis.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Two different mirror neuron pathways for social and non-social actions? A meta-analysis of fMRI studies.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2024Pooled it
- Differential effects of levodopa on social cognition in people with Parkinson's disease.Journal of Parkinson's disease · 2026Article
- Prefrontal modulation of striatal engagement: a hierarchical framework for goal-directed behavior.Communications biology · 2026Review
- Emotional Training via Telerehabilitation After Surgical Treatment for Facial Palsy: Prospective, Assessor-Blinded, 2-Arm Pilot Cohort Study.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologies · 2026Article
- The body in language, the language beyond the body: embrainment and graded embodiment in the evolution and use of language.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Neural synchrony links sensorimotor cortices in a network for facial motor control.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- The prefrontal operculum, a human-specific hub for the cognitive control of speech.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Post-Stroke Rehabilitation: Neurophysiology Processes of Bilateral Movement Training and Interlimb Coupling-A Systematic Review.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Anatomo-functional basis of emotional and motor resonance elicited by facial expressions.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2024Article
- Sensorimotor regulation of facial expression - An untouched frontier.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2024Review
- Depression in adolescence and young adulthood: the difficulty to integrate motivational/emotional systems.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Review
- Activation of Cerebellum, Basal Ganglia and Thalamus During Observation and Execution of Mouth, hand, and foot Actions.Brain topography · 2023Article
- Eye Gaze in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of Neural Evidence for the Eye Avoidance Hypothesis.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2023Review
- Resection of Low-Grade Gliomas in the Face Area of the Primary Motor Cortex and Neurological Outcome.Cancers · 2023Article
- Effective connectivity of the human mirror neuron system during social cognition.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2022Article
- Facial Expression Time Processing in Typical Development and in Patients with Congenital Facial Palsy.Brain sciences · 2022Article
- Reward System Dysfunction and the Motoric-Cognitive Risk Syndrome in Older Persons.Biomedicines · 2022Article
- Face yourself: The social neuroscience of mirror gazing.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- The Transdiagnostic Relevance of Self-Other Distinction to Psychiatry Spans Emotional, Cognitive and Motor Domains.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
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 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The vast majority of functional studies investigating mirror neurons (MNs) explored their properties in relation to hand actions, and very few investigated how MNs respond to mouth actions or communicative gestures. Since hand and mouth MNs were recorded in two partially overlapping sectors of the ventral precentral cortex of the macaque monkey, there is a general assumption that they share a same neuroanatomical network, with the parietal cortex as a main source of visual information. In the current review, we challenge this perspective and describe the connectivity pattern of mouth MN sector. The mouth MNs F5/opercular region is connected with premotor, parietal areas mostly related to the somatosensory and motor representation of the face/mouth, and with area PrCO, involved in processing gustatory and somatosensory intraoral input. Unlike hand MNs, mouth MNs do not receive their visual input from parietal regions. Such information related to face/communicative behaviors could come from the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Further strong connections derive from limbic structures involved in encoding emotional facial expressions and motivational/reward processing. These brain structures include the anterior cingulate cortex, the anterior and mid-dorsal insula, orbitofrontal cortex and the basolateral amygdala. The mirror mechanism is therefore composed and supported by at least two different anatomical pathways: one is concerned with sensorimotor transformation in relation to reaching and hand grasping within the traditional parietal-premotor circuits; the second one is linked to the mouth/face motor control and is connected with limbic structures, involved in communication/emotions and reward processing.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.