From the point of view of the neurologist, it is important to conceive the mirror system not as a separated, self-standing neuronal system, but rather as a mechanism intrinsic to most motor-related cortical areas. In fact, it is increasingly clear that most cortical areas that organize movements also respond to movement observation (Figure 2). This conceptualization of the mirror system allows one to understand the lack of a selective impairment in functions that are attributed to the mirror system following focal lesions. A possible example of this is ideomotor apraxia. In this syndrome, some behavioral aspects, such as imitation deficits, may indicate mirror neuron system failure, but others, eg, the dissociation between spontaneous and on-command behavior, do not appear to be directly related to this mechanism.30Similarly, the dissociation between deficits in the imitation of transitive, intransitive, or tool-use acts may be interpreted as being due to lesions of specific sectors of the mirror network.31However, the mirror mechanism as such does not explain the motor deficits that may be associated with them.