Mirror Neurons
Cognitive explanation for
social phenomena
Outline
• Veronica Hool
Social Implications
• David Piccinati
Anatomy/Physiology
• Sara Robinson
Autism
• Steve Shaw
Current/Future Research
Important Questions
• Why is it that we get so deeply involved in such
things as sports, videogames, movies, dances?
• Why is it that we have such strong emotional
responses?
• How is it that we can read other people's body
language and faces so well?
• What is it that allows us to connect so deeply
when we watch other humans?
The answer?...Mirror Neurons!
• a special circuitry found on both sides of
the brain that helps us whenever we look
at each other
• give us the ability to connect with one
another
• the brain's way of translating what we see
so we can relate to the world and
understand it
Discovery of Mirror Neurons
• Giacomo Rizzolatti
– Placed electrodes in the premotor cortex
– Wanted to study neurons specialized for the
control of hand actions
• Picking things up, grasping, etc.
• Mirror neurons actually found by chance
– Wrote about their discovery in 1992
Monkey Evidence
• In monkeys
– Originally found in premotor cortex
– Same neurons fire when
1. When monkey performs a goal-directed action
2. When monkey observes a similar action
Monkey Evidence (cont.)
• Same activity seen when
– Monkey saw entire action
– Monkey could not see completion of action
• These studies suggest that the activity of mirror
neurons correlates with action understanding.
Not just a monkey thing... it is a
people thing too!
• Growing up as children, first you see, then you do
• through this process we develop a rich basis of
knowledge that we can use to apply to how we see other
people
• when we see  we experience
Simulation
• such strong responses, because if you know the
feeling... then your mirror neurons fire as if you were
experiencing the action yourself
• examples: carrying a stack of packages, watching sports
Human Evidence
• Mu rhythm
– Suppressed when the brain is engaged in doing,
seeing or imagining action
– Seems to correlate to mirror neuron activity
–In most people, the mu wave is suppressed both in response to their own
movement and to observing the movement of others.
Human Evidence (cont.)
• fMRI shows regions activated when
performing an action and witnessing an
action.
Left insula
-Red =
experienci
ng disgust
-Yellow =
witnessing
disgust
Not just actions…
but FEELINGS too!
• Marco Iacoboni of UCLA did fMRI studies of emotional faces
• Results: the same neurons fired when you imitated a face
seen on a picture (actually moving the facial muscles), as well
as when you just looked at the picture
• suggests that mirror neurons send signals to the limbic and
emotional systems in the brain
• this in turn allows us to empathize!
Think about actors
• experts of the mirror neuron system
• humans instinctively respond to emotion
seen in other's faces and bodies
What does all this mean?
Deep in our architecture and biological
makeup, we are meant to be together, and
socially interact.
Mirror Neuron Dysfunction
• Many researchers
have concluded that
Autism is the result of
Mirror Neuron
Dysfunction
Characteristics of Autism
• Infants:
Avoid contact & fail to
anticipate being picked up
• First Few Years of
Development:
Might develop some skills
such was walking or talking
quicker than normal but other
developments are
considerably delayed
Characteristics of Autism (cont’d.)
• Toddlers:
– Abnormal behaviors
– Start to see social
dysfunctions
– “Insistence of
sameness”
– Lack of imaginary play
– Avoidance of eye
contact
Theory of Mind” and Autistic
Individuals
• “Theory of Mind”
the cognitive capacity to
attribute independent
mental states to self and
others in means to predict
and explain behavior,
beliefs, intentions and
actions.
• Autistic Individuals are
lacking the ability to
attribute mental states or
understand that another
individual has a different
perspective
Cognition in Autistic Individuals
• Common tests of
Cognition:
– False-belief tasks
– Instruct Autistic child to
show a photograph to
another child
– Recording of brain
activity when
performing a task and
then watching same
task being performed
by another individual
Cognition in Autistic Individuals
(cont’d)
• Savant Skills: 10% of
autistic kids seem to have
a certain remarkable
talent
• Ultimately, it has been
concluded that individuals
with autism are lacking
mirror neurons that would
normally allow them to
have an understanding of
the thoughts, feelings,
actions and emotions of
others.
Savant Musician Ellen
Recent Mirror Neuron Research
Neurocomputing and Robotics
• Anthropomorphic
“humanoid” robots that
socially interact with
humans.
• Discovery of the mirror
neuron system allows for
finer tuning of social
interactions between
robots and humans
• Oberman, McCleery,
Ramachandran, and
Pineda prove that mirror
neurons aren’t specifically
for biological interaction
Stroke Studies and Emotion
• Emotion- “the experience and
expression of feeling states” –
Cummings and Bogousslavsky
– Instrumental function deficits
would produce impairment of
emotional comprehension (both
verbal and non verbal)
– Lesions impairing fundamental
functions would produce
disorders of emotional
experience
– Lesions impairing
executive/integrative function
would produce impairment of
emotional control and
expression
Stroke Studies and Emotion
(cont’d)
• Stroke should then
produce neurological
state that depends on the
damaged
structure/function
• Damage to:
– Instrumental
FunctionAnosognosia
– Fundamental
FunctionsDeficit/Producti
ve Syndromes (ie mania,
depression, psychosis)
– Executive/integrative
functionsDisroders of
empathy
More Studies
• Congenital phantom limb
cases and developmental
theory for the basis of
body image
• Execution/Observation
Studies
• Mirror Neurons and
therapeutic hypnosis
• Mirror neurons and
neurorehabilitation
• Mu rhythms and
neurocomputing
References
• http://www.autism.org/overview.html
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050411204511.html
• Bodini B., Iacoboni M., Lenzi G.L. Acute stroke effects on
emotions: an interpretation through the mirror system. Curr
Opin Neurol. 2004 Feb;17(1):55-60.
• Price E.H. A critical review of congenital phantom limb cases
and a developmental theory for the basis of body image.
Conscious Cogn. 2006 Jun;15(2):310-22.
• http://www.neurotransmitter.net/mirrorneurons.html
• Oberman L.M., McCleery J.P., Ramachandran V.S., Pineda J.A.
EEG evidence for mirror neuron activity during the observation
of human and robot actions: Toward an analysis of the human
qualities of interactive robots. Neural Computing, 2006
References (cont.)
•
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ramachandran/ramachandran_p3.html
•
http://www.interdisciplines.org/mirror/papers/5
•
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3204/01.html
•
Gallese V., Keysers C., Rizzolatti G. A unifying view of the basis of
social cognition. TRENDS in Cog Sci. 2004 Sep; 8(9):396-403.
•
http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct05/mirror.html
•
Giacomo Rizzolatti1 and Laila Craighero2
•
Rizzolatti G., Craighero L. The Mirror Neuron System. Annu. Rev.
Neurosci. 2004. 27:169–92
•
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3204/01-resup.html