Luca Bonini

• PhD
• Professor at University of Parma

The current understanding of primate natural action organization derives from laboratory experiments in restrained contexts (RCs) under the assumption that this knowledge generalizes to freely moving contexts (FMCs). In this work, we developed a neurobehavioral platform to enable wireless recording of the same premotor neurons in both RCs and FMCs....

Fear responses to novel stimuli can be learned directly, through personal experiences (Fear Conditioning, FC), or indirectly, by observing conspecific reactions to a stimulus (Social Fear Learning, SFL). Although substantial knowledge exists about FC and SFL in humans and other species, they are typically conceived as mechanisms that engage separat...

Planning and execution of voluntary movement depend on the contribution of distinct classes of neurons in primary motor and premotor areas. However, timing and pattern of activation of GABAergic cells during specific motor behaviors remain only partly understood. Here, we directly compared the response properties of putative pyramidal neurons (PNs)...

We thank Beatrice de Gelder [1] for the opportunity to clarify some important points about our recent article in TiCs on the trends in mirror neuron research 30 years after their first description [2]. The mainstream view of the mirror mechanism classically focused on agent-shared representations as a ground for social perception. Based on evidence...

Mirror neurons (MNs) were first described in a seminal paper in 1992 as a class of monkey premotor cells discharging during both action execution and observation. Despite their debated origin and function, recent studies in several species, from birds to humans, revealed that beyond MNs properly so called, a variety of cell types distributed among...

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has long been understood as a high-level integrative station for computing motor commands for the body based on sensory (i.e., mostly tactile and visual) input from the outside world. In the last decade, accumulating evidence has shown that the parietal areas not only extract the pragmatic features of manipulable...

The neural processing of others' observed actions recruits a large network of brain regions (the action observation network, AON), in which frontal motor areas are thought to play a crucial role. Since the discovery of mirror neurons (MNs) in the ventral premotor cortex, it has been assumed that their activation was conditional upon the presentatio...

Planning and execution of voluntary movement depend on the contribution of distinct classes of neurons in primary motor and premotor areas. However, the specific functional role of GABAergic cells remains only partly understood. Here, electrophysiological and computational analyses are employed to compare directly the response properties of putativ...

The action observation network (AON) includes a system of brain areas largely shared with action execution in both human and nonhuman primates. Yet temporal and tuning specificities of distinct areas and of physiologically identified neuronal classes in the encoding of self and others' action remain unknown. We recorded the activity of 355 single u...

Others’ observed actions cause continuously changing retinal images, making it challenging to build neural representations of action identity. The monkey anterior intraparietal area (AIP) and its putative human homologue (phAIP) host neurons selective for observed manipulative actions (OMAs). The neuronal activity of both AIP and phAIP allows a sta...

Objective. Previous studies demonstrated the possibility to fabricate stereo-electroencephalography probes with high channel count and great design freedom, which incorporate macro-electrodes as well as micro-electrodes offering potential benefits for the pre-surgical evaluation of drug resistant epileptic patients. These new polyimide probes allow...

Significance The anterior intraparietal area (AIP) is a crucial hub in the observed manipulative action (OMA) network of primates. While macaques observe manipulative action videos, their AIP neuronal activity robustly encodes first the viewpoint from which the action is observed, then the actor’s body posture, and finally the observed-action ident...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

The pre-supplementary motor area F6 is involved in a variety of functions in multiple domains, from planning/withholding goal-directed actions in space to rule-based cognitive processes and social interactions. Yet, the neural machinery underlying this functional heterogeneity remains unclear. Here, we measured local population dynamics in differen...

Non-human primates (NHP) are widely considered an essential model for biomedical research because of their close genetic, anatomo-functional and cognitive similarities to humans. These same reasons also raise particular ethical concerns for the unavoidable harm caused to these animals, in particular to those involved in neuroscientific studies. Bes...

Premotor neurons play a fundamental role in transforming physical properties of observed objects, such as size and shape, into motor plans for grasping them, hence contributing to “pragmatic” affordance processing. Premotor neurons can also contribute to “semantic” affordance processing, as they can discharge differently even to pragmatically ident...

Current knowledge regarding the processing of observed manipulative actions (OMAs) (e.g., grasping, dragging, or dropping) is limited to grasping and underlying neural circuitry remains controversial. Here, we addressed these issues by combining chronic neuronal recordings along the anteroposterior extent of monkeys' anterior intraparietal (AIP) ar...

Significance Social animals exploit information about objects for planning actions and for predicting those of others. Here, we show that pre-supplementary motor area F6 hosts different types of neurons responding to visually presented objects when they are targeted by the monkey’s own action (self-type), another agent’s action (other-type), or bot...

Mirror neurons (MNs) are a class of cells originally discovered in the monkey ventral premotor cortex (PMv) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). They discharge during both action execution and action observation and appear to play a crucial role in understanding others’ actions. It has been proposed that the mirror mechanism is based on a match betw...

The spatial location and viewpoint of observed actions are closely linked in natural social settings. For example, actions observed from a subjective viewpoint necessarily occur within the observer’s peripersonal space. Neurophysiological studies have shown that mirror neurons (MNs) of the monkey ventral premotor area F5 can code the spatial locati...

Intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) is one of the most widely employed techniques for providing causal evidence of the relationship between neuronal activity and specific motor, perceptual, or even cognitive functions. In recent years, several new types of linear multielectrode silicon probes have been developed, allowing researchers to sample ne...

Drug resistant focal epilepsy can be treated by resecting the epileptic focus requiring a precise focus localization using stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) probes. As commercial SEEG probes offer only a limited spatial resolution, probes of higher channel count and design freedom enabling the incorporation of macro and microelectrodes would help...

Objective. Application-specific designs of electrode arrays offer an improved effectiveness for providing access to targeted brain regions in neuroscientific research and brain machine interfaces. The simultaneous and stable recording of neuronal ensembles is the main goal in the design of advanced neural interfaces. Here, we describe the developme...

This study investigates the properties of Mirror Neurons of are Pre-SMA F6 during the observation of a go/no-go reaching-grasping task performed in both the: a) extrapersonal space; b) peripersonal space.

Grasping relies on a network of parieto-frontal areas lying on the dorsolateral and dorsomedial parts of the hemispheres. However, the initiation and sequencing of voluntary actions also requires the contribution of mesial premotor regions, particularly the pre-supplementary motor area F6. We recorded 233 F6 neurons from 2 monkeys with chronic line...

Objective. Drug resistant focal epilepsy can be treated by resecting the epileptic focus requiring a precise focus localisation using stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) probes. As commercial SEEG probes offer only a limited spatial resolution, probes of higher channel count and design freedom enabling the incorporation of macro and microelectrodes...

Mirror neurons (MNs) are a fascinating class of cells originally discovered in the ventral premotor cortex (PMv) and, subsequently, in the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) of the macaque, which become active during both the execution and observation of actions. In this review, I will first highlight the mounting evidence indicating that mirroring oth...

Visuo-motor neurons of the ventral premotor area F5 encode “pragmatic” representations of object in terms of the potential motor acts (e.g., precision grip) afforded by it. Likewise, objects with identical pragmatic features (e.g., small spheres) but different behavioral value (e.g., edible or inedible) convey different “semantic” information and t...

Unlabelled: Mirror neurons (MNs) discharge during action execution as well as during observation of others' actions. Our own actions are those that we have the opportunity to observe more frequently, but no study thus far to our knowledge has addressed the issue of whether, and to what extent, MNs can code own hand visual feedback (HVF) during obj...

Significance statement: We demonstrated that macaque ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) neurons show remarkable selectivity for different aspects of the contextual information allowing the monkey to select and execute goal-directed manipulative actions. Interestingly, a set of these neurons provide multimodal representations of the intended g...

A fundamental capacity of social animals consists in the predictive representation of upcoming events in the outside world, such as the actions of others. Here, we tested the activity of ventral premotor area F5 mirror neurons (MNs) while monkeys observed an experimenter performing (Action condition) or withholding (Inaction condition) a grasping a...

This paper reports on the design, fabrication, and characterization of neural probes for Stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG). The probe specifically targets focal epilepsy as key application. However, probes of this type can also be used for the diagnosis and treatment of other neural dysfunctions such as Parkinson’s disease or tremor, typically re...

Our environment offers us a number of opportunities for action. However, sometimes we also have to refrain from acting, for example, when facing a "do not touch" sign placed over a desirable object on the shelf of a shop. Previous findings emphasized the role of mesial frontal and prefrontal regions in the inhibition of stimulus-driven motor respon...

The perception of objects does not rely only on visual brain areas, but also involves cortical motor regions. In particular, different parietal and premotor areas host neurons discharging during both object observation and grasping. Most of these cells often show similar visual and motor selectivity for a specific object (or set of objects), sugges...

The macaque ventral premotor area F5 hosts two types of visuomotor grasping neurons: "canonical" neurons, which respond to visually presented objects and underlie visuomotor transformation for grasping, and "mirror" neurons, which respond during the observation of others' action, likely playing a role in action understanding. Some previous evidence...

Abstract One of the fundamental challenges in behavioral neurophysiology in awake animals is the steady recording of action potentials of many single neurons for as long as possible. Here, we present single neuron data obtained during acute recordings mainly from premotor cortices of three macaque monkeys using a silicon-based linear multielectrode...

Mirror neurons (MNs) of the monkey ventral premotor cortex (area F5) are a class of cells that match the visual descriptions of others' actions with correspondent motor representations in the observer's brain. Several human studies suggest that one's own motor representations activated during action observation play a role in directing proactive ey...

Philosophical and neuroscientific investigation on intentional actions focused on several different aspects, making difficult to define what should be meant with the concept of intention. Most of our everyday actions are constituted by complex and finely organized motor sequences, planned and executed in order to attain a desired final goal. In thi...

The ventral agranular frontal cortex of the macaque monkey is formed by a mosaic of anatomically distinct areas. Although each area has been explored by several neurophysiological studies, most of them focused on small sectors of single areas, thus leaving to be clarified which is the general anatomo-functional organization of this wide region. To...

Macaques can efficiently use several tools, but their capacity to discriminate the relevant physical features of a tool and the social factors contributing to their acquisition are still poorly explored. In a series of studies, we investigated macaques' ability to generalize the use of a stick as a tool to new objects having different physical feat...

Natural actions are formed by distinct motor acts, each of which is endowed with its own motor purpose (i.e., grasping), chained together to attain the final action goal. Previous studies have shown that grasping neurons of parietal area PFG and premotor area F5 can code the goal of simple actions in which grasping is embedded. While during simple...

Mirror neurons (MNs) were first discovered in monkeys and subsequently in humans and birds. While MNs are deemed to play a number of high-level cognitive functions, here we propose that they serve a unitary form of sensorimotor recognition of others' behavior. We caution that this basic function should not be confounded with the higher order functi...

Classic mirror self-recognition mark tests involve familiarizing the subject with its mirror image, surreptitiously applying a mark on the subject's eyebrow, nose, or ear, and measuring self-directed behaviors toward the mark. For many non-human primate species, however, direct gaze at the face constitutes an aggressive and threatening signal. It i...

It is well known that ventral premotor area F5 codes the goal of executed and observed motor acts. This area is anatomically connected with part of the inferior parietal cortex (area PFG), which has been recently shown to play a role in action organization and intention understanding. The aims of the present study were 1) to assess whether the disc...

The discovery of mirror neurons (MNs), deemed to be at the basis of action understanding, could constitute the potential solution to the 'correspondence problem' between one's own and others' action that is crucial for of imitative behaviours. However, it is still to be clarified whether, and how, several imitative phenomena, differing in terms of...

The general view on the functional role of the monkey inferior parietal lobule (IPL) convexity mainly derives from studies carried out more than two decades ago and does not account for the functional complexity suggested by more recent neuroanatomical findings. We investigated this issue by recording multi- and single units in the IPL convexity of...