Event:

How is action knowledge such as the essence of cutting, opening, or greeting represented in the brain? A popular view is that conceptual aspects of actions are encoded in frontoparietal cortex, potentially overlapping with the motor system, whereas perceptual action details like body parts and movements are encoded in occipital and temporal cortex. Here, I will present results of fMRI-based MVPA studies that challenge this view: Perceptually invariant representations of actions and action categories can be decoded in lateral temporal, but less so in frontoparietal regions. In addition, individuals born without upper limbs represent observed hand actions like typically developed individuals, suggesting that the organization of brain regions encoding action knowledge does not dependent of motor experience. Rather, the topographical organization of categorical action knowledge appears to be reminiscent of adjacent posterior object distinctions, pointing toward an overarching principle of action and object knowledge organization in temporal and occipital cortex.