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Modulation of activity in medial frontal and motor cortices during error observation

Nature Neuroscience volume 7, pages 549–554 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

We used measures of the human event-related brain potential (ERP) to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying error processing during action observation. Participants took part in two conditions, a task execution condition and a task observation condition. We found that activity in both the medial frontal cortex and the motor cortices, as measured via the error-related negativity and the lateralized readiness potential, respectively, was modulated by the correctness of observed behavior. These data suggest that similar neural mechanisms are involved in monitoring one's own actions and the actions of others.

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Figure 1: Experimental setup.
Figure 2: Error-related negativities.
Figure 3: ERN source localization.
Figure 4: Lateralized readiness potentials.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. de Water and N. Hermesdorf for help in constructing the joysticks and LED-device, and K. Roze, A. Peijnenborgh and C. van den Brom for their assistance in data collection. H.T.v.S. and H.B. were supported by the European Science Foundation (IST-2000-29689).

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Author notes

  1. Hein T van Schie and Rogier B Mars: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information, University of Nijmegen, Box 9104, Nijmegen, 6500 HE, The Netherlands

    Hein T van Schie, Rogier B Mars & Harold Bekkering

  2. F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Box 9101, Nijmegen, 6500 HB, The Netherlands

    Rogier B Mars, Michael G H Coles & Harold Bekkering

Authors
  1. Hein T van Schie
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Correspondence to Hein T van Schie.

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van Schie, H., Mars, R., Coles, M. et al. Modulation of activity in medial frontal and motor cortices during error observation. Nat Neurosci 7, 549–554 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1239

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