Understanding non-biological dynamics with your own premotor system

The human premotor cortex (PM) appears to subserve a variety of cognitive and motor functions, including the prediction of non-biological dynamics. In the present study we directly tested the correspondence of premotor correlates of predicting different non-biological dynamics and imagining different actions by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging. Prediction tasks on either spatial, object or rhythmic dynamics were expected to draw on premotor areas involved in motor imagery tasks for arm, hand and mouth movements, respectively. Firstly, the results confirmed comparable dorsal-to-ventral distributions of property effects (in prediction) and movement effects (in motor imagery) in PM. Secondly, even more direct correspondences were observed for mouth movement imagery and rhythm prediction in inferior ventral PM and for arm movement imagery and spatial prediction in dorsal PM. Hand movement imagery and object prediction led to activations in closely adjacent areas in left superior ventral PM. Together, the present findings support the notion that to-be-predicted stimulus dynamics and motor effectors are coupled in lateral PM according to a pragmatic default. Beyond that, the results add further support to the notion that the human PM is involved in the prediction of many if not all kinds of dynamics.