Mirror Neurons Reflect How We Learn & Empathise

Like many great scientific discoveries mirror neurons were discovered by accident.  I always get a kick out of things like this :=)

In 1996 two neuroscientists in Parma, Giacomo Rizzolatti and Leonardo Fogassi, were studying how individual neurons in a monkey’s brain fired when it reached for different objects. When it reached for a raisin, a certain neuron in the pre-motor cortex fired. The accidental discovery then happened when Fogassi walked into the room and casually picked up a raisin….and the monkey’s neuron fired as if it had picked up the raisin itself! The men could hardly believe what they had just experienced, and after testing it out in many different ways, they called these neurons ‘mirror neurons’ because they reflected what was going on outside.

These neurons are now being investigated for the way in which they fire in response to something observed. The discovery of the mirror neurons suggests that everything we watch someone else do, we do the same thing in our own mind. This finding means that we rehearse mentally or imitate every action we see others doing whether it be a smile or a dance – and that we learn to do these by watching others. At a deeper level there is a biological dynamic for understanding others, and for dysfunctions such as lack of empathy (we all know people like that!) and even autism. It has been said that mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology – they will provide an underlying framework and help explain many mental abilities that have remained mysterious and inaccessible.

Since this initial discovery, other researchers have significantly expanded these findings. They’ve found that mirror neurons don’t just fire when an animal is watching someone else perform an action….they also fire if the monkey hears the sound of somebody doing something it recognises, for example, tearing a piece of paper. Through the use of imaging scans in humans (as you can imagine it’s not ethically possible to implant electrodes in human brains…) it has been found that people have groups of mirror neurons in higher numbers and more places than monkeys, and in areas that correspond to our abilities to understand feelings, intention and language. Gallese and Rizzolatti found that when people listened to sentences describing actions (for example, hand grasps ball), the same mirror neurons fired as would have if the person had performed the actions themselves or had seen them being performed.

Mirror neurons play a role in helping us understanding others. If you see somebody smile, then the motor areas in your brain are activated as though you were your smiling, and the areas that feel the happy sensations also get triggered. If you see somebody tenderly caressing their partner, those areas in your brain get activated as though you were being lovingly touched. Now I know why when I see somebody else being massaged I feel that it’s happening to me too … :=)

From the healing point of view, the stronger the mirror neuron activation, the more empathic somebody is.  In autism there is a definite breakdown in the mirror neuron system so that it doesn’t recognise (as much) the actions and emotions of others.

So the next time somebody yawns and you immediately start to yawn, then you know that your mirror neurons are working well! And I shall keep you up to date later next year with the findings from my mirror neuron dabblings.

References:
V. Gallese, L. Fadiga, L. Fogassi and G. Rizzolatti. Action Recognition in the Premotor Cortex. Brain, 1996, volume 119, number 2, pages 593-609.

V. Gazzola, L. Aziz-Zadeh and C. Keysers. Empathy and the somatotopic auditory mirror system in humans. Current Biology, 2006, volume 16, pages 1824-1829.

C. Keysers, B. Wicker, V. Gazzola, J. L. Anton, L. Fogassi and V. Gallese. A touching sight: SII/PV activation during the observation and experience of touch. Neuron, 2004, volume 42, pages 335-346.

E. Kohler, C. Keysers, M. A. Umilta, L. Fogassi, V. Gallese and G. Rizzolatti. Hearing sounds, understanding actions: action representation in mirror neurons. Science, 2002, volume 297, pages 846-848.

B. Wicker, C. Keysers, J. Plailly, J. P. Royet, V. Gallese and G. Rizzolatti. Both of us disgusted in My insula: the common neural basis of seeing and feeling disgust. Neuron 2003, volume 40, pages 655-664.