Contagious Yawning and the Frontal Lobe: an FMRI Study

Overview

Journal Hum Brain Mapp

Publisher Wiley

Specialty Neurology

Date 2008 Oct 22

PMID 18937281

Citations 21

Authors

Fatta B Nahab

Noriaki Hattori

Ziad S Saad

Mark Hallett

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We conducted a slow event-related fMRI experiment with naïve subjects' passively viewing yawn and various other control videos along with correlative behavioral testing. Specifically associated with the viewing of the contagious yawn was an area of activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest a role for the prefrontal cortex in the processing of contagious yawning, while demonstrating a unique automaticity in the processing of contagious motor programs which take place independently of mirror neuron networks.

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