Neural activity involved in the perception of human and meaningful object motion

Abstract

We characterized magnetoencephalographic responses during observation of point-light displays of human and object motion. Time courses of grand-mean source estimates were computed and time frequency maps were calculated. For both conditions, activity began in the posterior occipital and mid-parietal areas. Further, late peaks were observed in the parietal, sensory-motor and left temporal regions. Only observation of human motion resulted in activation of the right temporal area. Both viewing conditions resulted in α and β event-related desynchronization over the parietal, sensory-motor and temporal areas. A significant increase in β activity was seen in the posterior temporal region in the human motion condition. The visual analyses of human and object motion appear to involve both overlapping and divergent patterns of neural activity.