Enhancing Putative Mirror Neuron Activity with Magnetic Stimulation: A Single-Case Functional Neuroimaging Study

Abstract

Mirror neuron-driven embodied simulation, based on the neural exploitation hypothesis has been proposed as a physiological basis of social cognitive abilities in humans ( 1 ). Experimental evidence points to a relationship between social cognition and putative mirror neuron activity in neuropsychiatric disorders like schizophrenia ( 2 ) and autism ( 3 ). Experiments to explore strategies to modulate mirror neuron activity (MNA) are rare ( 4 ). We are unaware of any previous report that applied targeted brain stimulation to improve functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activation during action observation paradigms, an indirect method of measuring MNA. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a safe, noninvasive method of administering targeted brain stimulation ( 5 ) to enhance focal brain activity. In this letter, we describe the first report of a single session of high-frequency repetitive TMS (HF-rTMS) delivered at the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) enhancing putative MNA as ascertained by functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).