Mirror neurons are neurons located in the brain. They make it possible to reflect the behavior of others as if the observer were himself (or himself). Mirror neurons are not shape sensitive and have been directly observed in primate species. They are triggered when an animal acts or when the animal observes the same action performed by another and only in response to meaningful actions. Bright spots showing plausible kinematics are often also sufficient to trigger mirror neuron activation. Brain activity consistent with that of mirror neurons was found in the premotor cortex, supplementary motor area, primary somatosensory cortex, and inferior parietal cortex. discovered in the early 1990s. A team of Italian researchers discovered individual neurons in the brains of macaques that fired both when a monkey grabbed an object and also when it watched another primate grab the same object. Another experiment provided insight into the concept of action understanding which was demonstrated as follows: the monkeys were not allowed to see the actions performed by others, but were given cues to understand them (the motor noisy acts like cracking peanuts, paper ears). They were allowed either to see and hear, or to hear only. It was found that many mirror neurons in area F5 of the monkey's brain responded to the sound of the motor act, even when it was not visible. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The next step was to try to identify mirror neurons in humans, but researchers couldn't record the activity of single neurons in humans like they could in monkeys. , because it requires attaching electrodes directly to the brain. An alternative was to move forward with FMRI. Using FMRI we can understand the activity of neurons in a small box of (3mm x 3mm x 3mm), but we cannot tell if they are the same neurons or just neighbors. the ability to identify with the feelings, thoughts, or mental states of others (putting oneself “in the shoes” of someone else), as opposed to sympathy. Acknowledge another person's emotional difficulties and provide comfort and reassurance. Mirror neurons or the indications leading to them are not new. Lipps (1903) noted that while watching a stunt on a hanging wire, he could feel himself doing the same ("IchFühlemich so in ihm"). The above shows how intersubjectivity is an essential function of mirror neurons. In fact, mirror neurons fire both when we observe and perform an action. Vittorio Gallese calls this the “mirror matching mechanism.” Gallese says this same mechanism helps us understand the pain and emotions of others. In another experiment, Hutchinson et al. I noticed that certain neurons fired when pain was inflicted on them and also when the subject observed pinpricks on the examiner's fingers. Explaining the mechanism, Ramachandran says that antecedent neurons respond to pain. A subset of these same neurons fire after observing someone else in pain. Another experiment was carried out on monkeys. A box with a mirror was placed in front of the monkey. The mirror did not allow the monkey to see its contents. The box was then illuminated and the monkey was able to see the contents and grab the object inside. The door of the box was opened and the monkey was able to grab the food kept well under the object. THEArm and hand movements were recorded using ELITENext. They then tested the properties of the mirror. The experimenters grabbed food in front of the monkeys, among other activities. To ensure that neurons were firing in response to hand-object interactions, they observed neuronal activity for activities such as pretending to grasp objects, etc. They finally recorded their observations and these observations appeared to be in line with those predicted by the “mirror matching” mechanism. Action Understanding Hypothesis: The theory of mirror neurons and action understanding has not yet been sufficiently developed to produce a rigorous framework that can be considered a solid scientific background. However, much speculation based on experiments has been made to get a general idea of ​​the substance we are working with. We do not yet know whether mirror neurons are simply neurons that suddenly take on a specific function as a response to external sensory stimuli, in which case a good question to ask is "What causes them to respond to change?" ? ", or if they are, in fact, different from other neurons in their structure, and are specifically activated in cases where an "empathy" response is solicited. As for the location of these mirror neurons, experiments have shown that they are present in the motor cortex region of the brain. However, the mirror neurons that fire when observing an action may or may not be the neurons that fire when performing that action, because the neurons' response can be calculated with an accuracy of only 3 millimeters cubes, which results in filtering. for neurons triggering performance and observation reactions, up to the small volume of 3 mm 3, but no more. Therefore, we do not know with absolute certainty whether the same neurons are working, but this has been considered, for very unclear reasons, a safe assumption to make. Rizzolatti begins his 2008 article by stating that his hypothesis about the function of mirror neurons is that they contribute to “mediating imitation” and “action-comprehension.” Rizzolatti himself believes that these two theories are probable and necessary, but perhaps not sufficient to explain the understanding of various situations. He begins by stating that although he believes that mirror neurons have played a role of great importance during evolution, in helping primates understand the actions of other members of their species, he specifies that they does not claim that this is their only source for understanding the actions of their peers. This argument is supported by Iacoboni's experiment, in which he took photographs of a falling ball and that of a person performing a certain activity, and mixed the photographs in each set, while keeping the two sets distinct. Now he hands these photographs in their arbitrary order to people whose cortical regions of the brain are damaged and asks them to put them in a certain order. The observed result was that although the patients were able to rearrange the "collecting falling balls" into the correct order, they were unable to do the same for the person's actions. Iacoboni now concludes that this is because, due to damage to their cortical regions, the mirror neurons do not trigger a response, thus making them unable to understand what the person has done, i.e. that they are incapable of "understanding", and therefore I cannot rearrange the images in any meaningful way. However, a valid question to ask would befollowing: “How, then, do they understand the fall of a ball? » Unfortunately, the person who interviewed Dr. Iacoboni neglected to ask him this question, so we can only speculate as to his answer on this subject. One way to explain it would be to say that there are different degrees of understanding and that the drop of a ball is so "basic", that they hit them expecting it to go down. However, this is a weak argument, because it involves a very difficult, immeasurable quantity – “so basic”. Therefore, we would personally agree with Rizzolatti's argument that the mirror neuron mechanism is not the only mechanism that stimulates the understanding of a given action, thus showing that another mechanism can control a given action. some understanding, while proving Iacoboni's point that mirror neurons contribute greatly to the understanding of a given action. process of understanding action. Another view one can think of is that mirror neurons are supposed to help you better understand the reactions of others, by stimulating a similar response in the observer, but since the ball is an inanimate object, it is not question of “what does it mean “the ball thinks”, and therefore its behavior is no longer controlled by a mind, but by the laws of physics, forcing it to fall. Today, Rizzolatti continues to express his opinion on the influence of mirror neurons on action-imitation. He claims that the mirror neuron system forms the basis of imitation, but also adds that this is not their primary function. He claims that although laypeople seem to view imitation as a primitive cognitive ability, it is actually quite advanced, seen only in primates, primarily humans and apes. From here he concludes that the only function cannot be action-imitation, a rather general point to make in a research paper, we think. However, in an earlier paper he noted that when an observed action is recognized, it stimulates an analogous motor representation in the observer's brain, thus making the observer aware of what is happening to the other person, but that A motor control mechanism helps prevent the person from actually performing the observed action. It would therefore seem that the function of mirror neurons would not only be to cause “blind mimicry”, but also to help understand why the action is carried out by making the observer “feel the action”. Again, this is pure speculation on our part, and we pretend that none of this is beyond doubt. The discussion thus far should have raised an important question: "How can mirror neurons activate a response without any prior knowledge of the reactions that occur during that response?" such actions? Rizzolatti also answers this question in his 2008 paper, in which he claims that mirror neurons induce motor representations of observed actions if and only if the outcome of those actions is known. This is, in its essential terms, the theory of understanding action. Adherents of this concept previously thought that mirror neurons helped make sense of a given action, but later scientists began to suspect that they actually coded for an action. . To this end, Iacoboni believes that autistic patients who lack the capacity for empathy, lack functional mirror neurons due to damage to their cortex and are therefore unable to attach meaning to an action and are therefore incapable to learn the meaning of specific actions since they don't do it. have the capacity to attach to them.