Motor cortical inhibition during concurrent action execution and action observation

Action Execution (AE) and Action Observation (AO) share an extended cortical network of activated areas. During coordinative action these processes also overlap in time, potentially giving rise to behavioral interference effects. The neurophysiological mechanisms subtending the interaction between concurrent AE and AO are substantially unknown. To assess the effect of AO on observer’s corticomotor drive, we run one electromyography (EMG) and three Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) studies. Participants were requested to maintain a steady hand opening or closing posture while observing the same or a different action (hand opening and closing in the main TMS study). By measuring Cortical Silent Periods (CSP), an index of GABA B -mediated corticospinal inhibitory strength, we show a selective reduction of inhibitory motor drive for mismatching AE-AO pairs. The last two TMS experiments, show that this mismatch is computed according to a muscle-level agonist-antagonist representation. Combined, our results suggest that corticospinal inhibition may be the central neurophysiological mechanism by which one’s own motor execution is adapted to the contextual visual cues provided by other’s actions.