The mirroring of actions is performed by a specialized system of neurons found in the sensorimotor cortex, termed the mirror neuron system. This system is considered an important mechanism that facilitates social understanding. We present a pre-registered experiment that used EEG to investigate whether short-term training via physical rehearsal or observational learning elicit distinct changes in mirror neuron activity for unfamiliar hand actions, and whether these training effects are influenced by the degree of familiarity (i.e., the frequency of action repetitions during training). Sixty adults completed a pre- and post-training EEG action observation task. Half of the participants completed 30 min of execution training (i.e., observing and performing unfamiliar hand actions), and half completed observation-only training (i.e., observing unfamiliar hand actions being performed). Post-training familiarity was manipulated by varying the number of training repetitions for each hand action (from 0 to 50 repetitions). Results revealed that sensorimotor cortex activity to the observation of hand actions increased following execution training, but did not change when training was simply observational. Moreover, the frequency of training repetitions did not modulate sensorimotor cortex activation after training, suggesting that short-term physical rehearsal enhances general processes involved in action understanding, rather than specific motor representations.

中文翻译：

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短期体育锻炼可增强后视镜系统对动作观察的激活。

动作的镜像是通过在感觉运动皮层中找到的专用神经元系统（称为镜像神经元系统）执行的。该系统被认为是促进社会理解的重要机制。我们提供了一个预先注册的实验，该实验使用脑电图来研究通过体力排练或观察性学习进行的短期训练是否会引起陌生手部镜神经元活动的明显变化，以及这些训练效果是否受熟悉程度的影响（即，在训练过程中重复动作的频率）。60名成年人完成了训练前后的脑电图动作观察任务。一半的参与者完成了30分钟的执行训练（即观察和执行不熟悉的手势），一半的参与者完成了仅观察的训练（即，观察正在执行的陌生手部动作）。通过改变每个手势的训练重复次数（从0到50次重复）来操纵训练后的熟悉程度。结果显示，在执行训练后，对观察到的手部动作的感觉运动皮层活动有所增加，但在单纯观察训练时并没有改变。此外，训练重复的频率并不能调节训练后感觉运动皮层的激活，这表明短期的物理排练可以增强动作理解中涉及的一般过程，而不是特定的运动表现。结果显示，在执行训练后，对观察到的手部动作的感觉运动皮层活动有所增加，但在单纯观察训练时并没有改变。此外，训练重复的频率并不能调节训练后感觉运动皮层的激活，这表明短期的物理排练可以增强动作理解中涉及的一般过程，而不是特定的运动表现。结果显示，在执行训练后，对观察到的手部动作的感觉运动皮层活动有所增加，但在单纯观察训练时并没有改变。此外，训练重复的频率并不能调节训练后感觉运动皮层的激活，这表明短期的物理排练可以增强动作理解中涉及的一般过程，而不是特定的运动表现。