Talk:Mirror neuron

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Does anyone know where the quote from Rizzolatti comes from? All references I can find related to that quote on the Internet just say it's from wikipedia. When did he actually say that? - Bobet 16:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted the paragraph you're referring to. I am a science writer and was working on an article on mirror neurons some two months ago, so I checked it with Rizzolatti (or maybe it was Ferrari, I should look it up in my e-mail). He denied that the finding was serendipitious and that the thing with the banana and the scanner ever happened. Hester van Santen 212.187.63.199 20:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the explicit statement that macaque monkeys do not imitate others of their species in light of new evidence^[1] Meehawl 17:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Mirror neurons and imitation 2 Autism 3 Mirror neurons in humans 4 Observation mirrors action or vice versa 5 Precognition neurons? 6 Mirror neurons, origins of language, and metaphor

[edit] Mirror neurons and imitation

What we know about mirror neurons is their cellular activity under certain circunstances. We do not know their product. Imitation is a behavior of one subject. The imitation syndrom of Lhermitte (1964) is due to lesions and probably correspond to the deshinhibition of a learned inhibition. I believe that it would be wise not passing to fast from one concept to the other.

• Lhermitte, F. (1984) The autonomy of man and the frontal lobe. I and II. Bull. Acad. Nat. Med. 168:224-242

--Gerard.percheron 13:37, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Autism

The current issue of Scientific American has two articles focusing on this topic. One of them states a theory that the basis of autism is mirror-neuron deficit.
--Jerzy•t 14:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I am currently working in a lab that has just recieved funding to study mirror neurons in autism using fMRI, we postulate the same thing you read in Scientific American. Niubrad 01:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

And I work in another action understanding lab and we are very skeptical of the idea of a direct link between mirror neurons and autism. It is an appealing idea but the data simply is not strong enough yet.--AFdeCH 15:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The idea may be simplistic, but it deserves enough consideration to either prove or disprove it. If it should be true, the prospect of a simple (fairly) therapeutic option for the treatment of the condition becomes at least conceptually feasible. --Anthony.bradbury 21:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is definitely worth testing, but it hasn't been tested fully yet. AFdeCH 21:52, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

It's overdoing, how about reflex? you don't imitate what isn't worth.. i think that trail is more promising, interesting besides, if that changes macaque stemming neurologics. "the social cel", The archeological argument is not convincing, denying speech in early humans. It is more plausudible (eg.) a stable environmental concept operated until, an influence of moral or ethic character was the cause of major changes (rock-art), thriven by population factors(vertical population expanse). This decision/impact theory is plausible, at least historically, in the sense human societys have reacted diversely , and revolutionary when technological circumstances (firearms, agriculture) rooted their livelyhoods.Otoh., ofcourse its a highly functional and valuable cell-type80.57.242.54 17:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

As a person with Asperger Syndrome, a high-functioning type of autism, the SciAm article caught my eye, and I eagerly devoured it. Autism has several components, which can include sensory regulation malfunctions, but the one people seem most concerned about is the social atypicality.

I don't read human body language, and I have a hard time picking up subtle social clues; I also have a mild, undiagnosed prosopagnosia for human faces. Neurotypical people pick up body language on an instinctive level (or so they tell me), and respond on the same instinctive level. I have been asked why I don't smile, why I run funny, and why I have no fashion sense.

I am unlikely to successfully mate with a neurotypical human female, thus passing on my genes, because I evoke no sense of the Protector or the Stable Provider. In a primitive environment, I would not be a survivor. However, in urban/suburban civilization, a person's survival characteristics are different than in the rural or primitive areas. In the city, my brain is more highly prized than my hands.

It should be obvious that not all of the autism puzzle is based on different functioning of mirror neurons; however, it does seem plausible that the "self-absorbtion" that autism is named after is based on not innately recognizing others as "similar to me". --BlueNight 07:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mirror neurons in humans

Does anyone have reference to the existence of neurons that isn't from inference?

The section "The mirror neuron system in humans" initial states that existence is unknown, then proceeds on implying that they do indeed exist.

eet_1024 66.53.228.65 02:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

The previously referenced Scientific American articles that brought it to the cultural consciousness state quite clearly that this was first obvserved in primates with electrodes attached inside their brains. Since such invasive experimentation can't ethically be done to humans, a similar phenomenon was sought, and found, on electroencephalograms. Thus, the existence of the phenomenon inside the human brain is based on inference, but it isn't much of a stretch. --BlueNight 07:45, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, can anyone confirm that Luciano Fadiga was "the first to provide evidence that human beings have a system of mirror neurons analogous to system found in monkeys".[1] Google Scholar results indicate papers he has been involved in are well cited, but the claim of "first" is pretty bold. If he was the first, is it appropriate to mention him in this section of the article? John Vandenberg 04:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Observation mirrors action or vice versa

The introduction and several other places imply that the principle function of these neurons is to do and by some auxiliary path they fire for observing too ("as though the observer itself were performing the action"). But I don't see anything to back that up. Maybe they're principally perception neurons and when the animal performs an action, it is essentially observing its own action ("as though the actor itself were observing the action"). Or, what seems more likely, the neurons represent the abstract action, and so naturally fire whether the animal either does or observes the action. If someone knows there's no reason to believe these are fundamentally self-action neurons, please fix the introduction.

Bryan Henderson 23:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the neurons probably represent the abstract action. But they are still needed for performing actions. If a person has a stroke damaging the inferior parietal lobule, they have difficulty performing and imitating skilled actions (Buxbaum LJ, Kyle KM, Menon R. On beyond mirror neurons: internal representations subserving imitation and recognition of skilled object-related actions in humans. Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2005 Sep;25(1):226-39) AFdeCH 21:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Precognition neurons?

There's something missing in the description of the grasp-to-eat vs grasp-to-place experiment. It says the neuron fires before the second part (eat/place) of the action happens. How does the monkey's brain know which it's going to be?

Ordinary causality considerations say that as described, the experiment neuron must not be related to eating or placing, since they happen after the neuron fires!

Bryan Henderson 23:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The monkey knew if the object was food, it was going to be eaten. If it was not food, it was going to be placed. AFdeCH 21:43, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

This article is very poorly written. What is the policy regarding quality of writing vs. content?

[edit] Mirror neurons, origins of language, and metaphor

The article points out that human mirror neurons seem to be close to Broca's area, suggesting an involvement in the origins of language, possibly as part of some kind of shared gestural system.

It occurs to me that there is another possible route from mirror neuron to language. The logic of the mirror neuron mechanism seems to be some kind of limited 'represention of the other as oneself'. The logic of metaphor is also a 'representation of one thing as another'. It would be a neat evolutionary twist if a neurological generalization of the mirror neuron mechanism had been a trigger for the development of metaphor - or perhaps of some more general mechanism that subsumes metaphor such as Fauconnier and Turner's 'conceptual blending'. One could in principle test this by looking for metaphor-related neural mechanisms co-located with mirror neuron mechanisms.

Is this plausible neurologically?

JNTM 15:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC)