Abstract
The mirror system is a brain network that gets activated during action performance and observation. Brain mu waves have been used as a mirror system activity index; however, mu rhythm is prone to contamination by occipital alpha wave activity, thus raising a concern regarding its reliability as an index of the mirror system activity. In this study, we investigated whether mu suppression can be used as an index of neurofeedback training, which influences mirror system activities. Participants observed videos of hand movement under three different conditions: central mu feedback (muFB), occipital alpha feedback (aFB), and simple observation without any feedback (OBS). Results showed that at the 4–5 min mark, mu wave was most significantly suppressed in the central site at muFB. We thus demonstrated the possibility of increasing mu wave suppression in feedback training using a specific stimulus such as motion observation.
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This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (17J02763).
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YI conceived and designed the study, performed the experiments and the statistical analysis, and drafted the manuscript. NS carried out the experiments and helped to draft the manuscript. YN and SH participated in designing and coordinating the experiment, and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
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Communicated by Melvyn A. Goodale.
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Ikeda, Y., Nishimura, Y., Shin, N. et al. A study of EEG mu neurofeedback during action observation. Exp Brain Res 238, 1277–1284 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-020-05808-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-020-05808-9