1. Département de physiologie, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128 Succursale Centreville, Montréal, Québec, H3C 3J7, Canada

Correspondence to: John F. Kalaska Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to J.F.K. (Email: kalaskaj@physio.umontreal.ca).

Abstract

Behavioural and imaging studies suggest that when humans mentally rehearse a familiar action they execute some of the same neural operations used during overt motor performance^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}. Similarly, neural activation is present during action observation in many of the same brain regions normally used for performance, including premotor cortex^{6, 7, 8, 9}. Here we present behavioural evidence that monkeys also engage in mental rehearsal during the observation of sensory events associated with a well-learned motor task. Furthermore, most task-related neurons in dorsal premotor cortex exhibit the same activity patterns during observation as during performance, even during an instructed-delay period before any actual observed motion. This activity might be a single-neuron correlate of covert mental rehearsal.

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