Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 11 July 1997:
Vol. 277. no. 5323, pp. 190 - 191
DOI: 10.1126/science.277.5323.190
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Perspectives

Also see the archival list of Enhanced Perspectives

NEUROSCIENCE:
Enhanced: The Space Around Us

Giacomo Rizzolatti, Luciano Fadiga, Leonardo Fogassi, and Vittorio Gallese

What kind of maps do we keep inside our minds to chart the space around our bodies? In one area of the brain, some evidence suggests that neurons code for pieces of our environment that are not identified by their absolute position in space, but rather by their position in relation to the body. In this issue on page 239 Grazziano et al. show that this is true for stationary as well as moving stimuli and for stimuli that are not actually seen but just imagined. In their Perspective, Rizzolatti et al. discuss the generality of this phenomenon and propose that maps in the mind may be composed of an array of motor schema.

The authors are at the Instituto di Fisiologia Umana, Università di Parma, via Gramsci 14, 43100 Parma, Italy. E-mail: fisioum{at}symbolic.pr.it

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Using Peripersonal Warning Signals to Orient a Driver's Gaze.
C. Ho and C. Spence (2009)
Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 51, 539-556
   Abstract »    PDF »
Mirror Neurons Differentially Encode the Peripersonal and Extrapersonal Space of Monkeys.
V. Caggiano, L. Fogassi, G. Rizzolatti, P. Thier, and A. Casile (2009)
Science 324, 403-406
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Warning Signals Induce Automatic EMG Activations and Proactive Volitional Inhibition: Evidence From Analysis of Error Distribution in Simple RT.
P. Boulinguez, M. Jaffard, L. Granjon, and A. Benraiss (2008)
J Neurophysiol 99, 1572-1578
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Cortical Plasticity in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Motor Imagery and Function.
D. Lule, V. Diekmann, J. Kassubek, A. Kurt, N. Birbaumer, A. C. Ludolph, and E. Kraft (2007)
Neurorehabil Neural Repair 21, 518-526
   Abstract »    PDF »
Before and below 'theory of mind': embodied simulation and the neural correlates of social cognition.
V. Gallese (2007)
Phil Trans R Soc B 362, 659-669
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Is That Near My Hand? Multisensory Representation of Peripersonal Space in Human Intraparietal Sulcus.
T. R. Makin, N. P. Holmes, and E. Zohary (2007)
J. Neurosci. 27, 731-740
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Neuropsychological evidence of modular organization of the near peripersonal space.
A. Farne, M. L. Dematte, and E. Ladavas (2005)
Neurology 65, 1754-1758
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Neural consequences of acting in near versus far space: a physiological basis for clinical dissociations.
P. H. Weiss, J. C. Marshall, G. Wunderlich, L. Tellmann, P. W. Halligan, H.-J. Freund, K. Zilles, and G. R. Fink (2000)
Brain 123, 2531-2541
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)