Mirror Neurons
17 February 2001

Seminal article:

Arbib, M. A. and G. Rizzolatti (1997). Neural expectations: a possible evolutionary path from manual skills to language. Communication and Cognition 29: 393.

Follow-ups:

Tomasello, Michael (1999). The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. UCB Ed/Psych BF311 .T647

Buccino et al. (2001). Action observation activates premotor and parietal areas in a somatotopic manner: an fMRI study. European Journal of Neuroscience 13: 400-404.

Abstract
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to localize brain areas that were active during the observation of actions made by another individual. Object- and non-object-related actions made with different effectors (mouth, hand and foot) were presented. Observation of both object- and non-object-related actions determined a somatotopically organized activation of premotor cortex. The somatotopic pattern was similar to that of the classical motor cortex homunculus. During the observation of object-related actions, an activation, also somatotopically organized, was additionally found in the posterior parietal lobe. Thus, when individuals observe an action, an internal replica of that action is automatically generated in their premotor cortex. In the case of object-related actions, a further object-related analysis is performed in the parietal lobe, as if the subjects were indeed using those objects. These results bring the previous concept of an action observation/execution matching system (mirror system) into a broader perspective: this system is not restricted to the ventral premotor cortex, but involves several somatotopically organized motor circuits.

Discussion on Dialogues at <louiselu@frontiernet.net>

From Ralph Ellis, Ph.D. (philosophy)

It's important to realize that mirror neurons aren't some special class of neurons that perform the specific function of imitation or empathy with others' actions and conscious states. They are the same neurons that are active when we imagine ourselves doing the action. When we understand the actions of another, we do so by imagining what it would be like to execute the action, and that entails activating neural firing patterns that would correspond to imagining ourselves doing the action. I hope everyone is aware that Natika Newton explained why this happens some years ago in her Foundations of Understanding (1996). The interesting point is what this says about how we are conscious and how we understand the world and other persons in general -- that when we're conscious of any object, we are so most fundamentally in terms of its possible action affordances, and when we understand another conscious being, we understand them as beings who understand objects in the same way we do -- most basically, by imagining how they could or couldn't act in relation to the object. But in order to understand the actions of other persons in this way, we have to imagine ourselves executing the actions as they are executing them, which of course fires some of the same neurons that would fire if we were simply to imagine ourselves executing the action (which in turn also includes some of the same neurons firing as if we ourselves were to actually execute the action). The neurons in question are the parietal ones that form the body map, and are activated when we imagine moving those parts of our body. What is new is the realization of how we are born with a tendency to empathize -- i.e., the so-called "mirror neurons" will fire and allow us to empathize with what it's like to execute an action another is doing (e.g., someone pointing their finger) even before we have ever actually done that specific action ourselves. We seem to come into the world with this tendency already activated, to be able to map others' actions onto our own body maps and imagine what it would be like to execute their actions, without first having learned this by executing the actions ourselves. (Actually, that observation isn't new -- it goes back at least as far as Meltzoff & Gopnik, Baresis & Moore, etc. -- but the fact that the mirror neurons are the ones that activate when it happens is new.)

Cheers to all, Ralph Ellis

From Michael Bernet, Ph.D. (social and personality psychology)

While the "mirror neuron" research is interesting in itself, it may not be necesary to explain the phenomenon.

There are at least two known mechanisms at work.

The first is innate:
============
a newborn responds to its mother's emotions at their very first contact (Renee Spitz, 1946), apparently responding according to whether she is accepting or rejecting, content or discontent.

• Infants respond in mirror fashion to the wails and sounds of other infants while still in the nursery ward
• A young monkey will cower in fear when an object resembling a severed "monkey's head" is carried past its cage
• A group of women living in close proximity will spontaneously coordinate their menstrual cycles (this is more iffy; it may easily be the reaction to of faint hormonal impulses from the other women)
• Humans (especially females) tend to spontaneously identify with, and reach out to, the young of any species--or rather, perhaps, to any creature that has the wider visual aspects of infancy, relatively large head, relatively large eyes, "cuddliness," "helplessness."

The other mechanism is probably learned--but the art of learning, itself,
may be innate.
==============================

• The infants of many species learn to copy the actions of others, gradually achieving greater and greater approximation. They learn to move, to reach, to smile (in these, of course, they find reinforcement in the adults' admiration, but reading the admiration may itself be an innate or a learned mechanism)
• Quite young children are able to empathize with the emotions and feelings of other children and adults
• Our pets tend to empathize with our moods and emotions and tend to respond appropriately
• Those most aware of their own subtle and rapid changes in body sensations appear to be more able than others to rapidly and efforlessly empathize with the current state of another person, to become rapidly and efforlessly aware of their own attendant sensations, and to effortlessly respond to the other person/ animal/ situation in the most appropriate manner ("Somat Awareness" theory). People with that skill (which can apparently be developed through various psychotherapies, bodily and spiritual therapies) tend to be more empathic, "warmer," more content. .... I believe this style to be an important component of "Emotional intelligence"

Michael Bernet, Ph.D.
1270 North Ave., 1-P
New Rochelle, NY 10804

From Adrian:

I see mirror neurons as something by which overdone neurobiology may yet blow itself up. Moreover the entire sensorium suggests we have to have mirror neurons simply to model things so perhaps theoreticians have overdone mirror neurons, who really knows? Ain't fantasy nice.

Adrian.

On simulations

Stueber, Karsten R. and Hans Herbert Kogler (2000). Empathy and agency: the problem of understanding in the human sciences. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. UCB Ed/Psych BF64 .E67 2000. Stueber is Professor of Philosophy at College of the Holy Cross, email <kstueber@holycross.edu>.

Collins, Christopher (1991). The poetics of the mind's eye: literature and the psychology of imagination. Philadelphia, PA: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1991. UCB Main PN56.I45 C58 1991.

Collins, Christopher (1991). Reading the written image: verbal play, interpretation, and the roots of iconophobia. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991. UCB Main PN1042 .C583 1991.