Skip Nav Destination
Close Modal
Update search
NARROW
Format
Journal
TocHeadingTitle
Date
Availability
1-4 of 4
Laurel J. Buxbaum
Close
Follow your search
Access your saved searches in your account
Would you like to receive an alert when new items match your search?
Sort by
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2017) 29 (11): 1791–1802.
Published: 01 November 2017
FIGURES
Abstract
View article
PDF
Our use of tools is situated in different contexts. Prior evidence suggests that diverse regions within the ventral and dorsal streams represent information supporting common tool use. However, given the flexibility of object concepts, these regions may be tuned to different types of information when generating novel or uncommon uses of tools. To investigate this, we collected fMRI data from participants who reported common or uncommon tool uses in response to visually presented familiar objects. We performed a pattern dissimilarity analysis in which we correlated cortical patterns with behavioral measures of visual, action, and category information. The results showed that evoked cortical patterns within the dorsal tool use network reflected action and visual information to a greater extent in the uncommon use group, whereas evoked neural patterns within the ventral tool use network reflected categorical information more strongly in the common use group. These results reveal the flexibility of cortical representations of tool use and the situated nature of cortical representations more generally.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2015) 27 (12): 2491–2511.
Published: 01 December 2015
FIGURES
| View All (7)
Abstract
View article
PDF
The inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobe have been characterized as human homologues of the monkey “mirror neuron” system, critical for both action production (AP) and action recognition (AR). However, data from brain lesion patients with selective impairment on only one of these tasks provide evidence of neural and cognitive dissociations. We sought to clarify the relationship between AP and AR, and their critical neural substrates, by directly comparing performance of 131 chronic left-hemisphere stroke patients on both tasks—to our knowledge, the largest lesion-based experimental investigation of action cognition to date. Using voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping, we found that lesions to primary motor and somatosensory cortices and inferior parietal lobule were associated with disproportionately impaired performance on AP, whereas lesions to lateral temporo-occipital cortex were associated with a relatively rare pattern of disproportionately impaired performance on AR. In contrast, damage to posterior middle temporal gyrus was associated with impairment on both AP and AR. The distinction between lateral temporo-occipital cortex, critical for recognition, and posterior middle temporal gyrus, important for both tasks, suggests a rough gradient from modality-specific to abstract representations in posterior temporal cortex, the first lesion-based evidence for this phenomenon. Overall, the results of this large patient study help to bring closure to a long-standing debate by showing that tool-related AP and AR critically depend on both common and distinct left hemisphere neural substrates, most of which are external to putative human mirror regions.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2006) 18 (12): 2063–2076.
Published: 01 November 2006
Abstract
View article
PDF
Two central issues in the field of motor control are the coordinate frame in which movements are controlled and the distinction between movement planning and online correction. In this study we used these issues to frame several hypotheses about the deficits underlying ideomotor apraxia (IMA). In particular, we examined whether ideomotor apraxics exhibited (1) deficits in movement control in intrinsic (body relative) coordinates with better control in extrinsic (workspace relative) coordinates, (2) deficits in movement planning that are compensated for by an overreliance on online correction, or (3) both deficits. Patients with IMA and two comparison groups performed movement tasks that relied preferentially on either intrinsic or extrinsic coordinate control when online correction was either possible or impossible. Participants performed posture imitation and grasp imitation movements to body- and object-relative end positions in the presence or absence of visual feedback. Consistent with the intrinsic coordinate control hypothesis, patients with IMA showed a significantly greater disparity than the other two groups between movements made to body-relative and object-relative targets as well as between imitation of meaningless postures and grasping. Consistent with the correction overreliance hypothesis, the IMA group was more disrupted than the other groups by the removal of vision. Thus, IMA patients exhibit behavioral patterns consistent with both deficient intrinsic coordinate control and overreliance upon visual feedback. Finally, lesion analysis suggests that damage to the left inferior parietal lobe (Brodmann's areas 39 and 40) may play a key role in both behavioral deficits.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2006) 18 (7): 1223–1236.
Published: 01 July 2006
Abstract
View article
PDF
The spatial neglect syndrome, defined by asymmetric attention and action not attributed to primary motor or sensory dysfunction and accompanied by functional disability, is a major cause of post-stroke morbidity. In this review, we consider the challenges and obstacles facing scientific researches wishing to evaluate the mechanisms and effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions. Spatial neglect is a heterogeneous disorder, for which consensus research definitions are not currently available, and it is unclear which of the deficits associated with the syndrome causes subsequent disability. We review current opinion about methods of assessment, suggest a rational approach to selecting therapies which requires further study, and make systems-level and theoretical recommendations for building theory. We lastly review some creative questions for consideration in future research.