Mu Suppression During Action Observation Only in the Lower, not in the Higher, Frequency Subband

Mu suppression – desynchronization of neural oscillations in central EEG electrodes during action execution and observation – has been widely accepted as a marker for neural mirroring. It has been conventionally and predominantly quantified in the 8-13 Hz range, corresponding to the alpha frequency band, although few studies reported differences in lower and higher subbands that together constitute the mu frequency band. In the present study, we adopted a data-driven approach to examine the spectral and temporal dynamics of mu suppression when participants watched videos depicting hand and face actions and artificial pattern movements. Our analyses in central EEG electrodes revealed that neural oscillations were significantly suppressed during action observation only in the lower (8-10.5 Hz), not in the higher (10.5-13 Hz), subband. No such subband differentiation was observed for the alpha oscillations in the occipital electrodes. In addition, in the lower subband, significantly stronger suppressions were selective for hand actions in the central EEG electrodes placed over the hand region of the sensorimotor cortices and for facial actions in the frontotemporal electrodes placed over the face region of the sensorimotor cortices. In the higher subband, such stimulus selectivity was only observed for facial actions in the frontotemporal electrodes. Furthermore, the neural oscillations in the lower, but not the higher, subband followed the precise temporal patterning of biological motion in the videos. These results indicate that neural oscillations in the lower subband show the characteristics of neural mirroring processes, whereas those in the higher subband might reflect other mechanisms.