ReviewWhere do mirror neurons come from?
Section snippets
Properties of mirror neurons in monkeys
Matching is the most basic property of mirror neurons—they fire when the monkey observes and performs similar actions. The adaptation hypothesis explains this matching in terms of the putative function of mirror neurons (see Table 1): the evolution of neurons that respond during observation and execution of similar actions has been favoured by natural selection because, in contrast with, for example, neurons that fire when one action is observed and different action is executed, they enable the
Is there a human ‘mirror neuron system’?
Research using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been interpreted by many researchers as evidence that humans also have mirror neurons or, more broadly, a ‘mirror neuron system’. TMS studies show that passive observation of arm, hand and finger movements results in selective activation of the muscles involved in producing the observed movement (Aziz-Zadeh et al., 2002, Catmur et al., 2007, Fadiga et al., 1995, Gangitano et al., 2001,
Imitation in newborns?
Newborn infants have had minimal opportunity for sensorimotor learning. Therefore evidence of mirror neuron system activity in newborn monkeys or humans would provide strong support for the adaptation hypothesis over the associative hypothesis (Meltzoff and Decety, 2003, Rizzolatti et al., 2002). No direct evidence of this kind is available. However, it has been argued that imitation depends on the mirror neuron system, and therefore that studies reporting imitation in neonates provide indirect
Conclusions and future directions
The associative hypothesis could be tested more decisively by examining the effects of incompatible sensorimotor experience on mirror neurons in monkeys. This hypothesis predicts that if monkeys were given experience in which, for example, observation of a precision grip is reliably correlated with execution of a power grip, then some of the mirror neurons that were previously responsive to observation and execution of a precision grip would become counter-mirror neurons, discharging during
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Geoff Bird, Charlotte Bonardi, Marcel Brass, Caroline Catmur, Richard Cook, Anthony Dickinson, Martin Eimer, Chris Frith, James Kilner, Dick Passingham, Matthew Rushworth, Clare Press, Elizabeth Ray, Sophie Scott, David Shanks and Nick Shea for their help and encouragement. I would also like to thank Steve Duxbury, Julia and Lily Fogerty, Mary Heyes, and the children of St Teresa's Catholic Primary School, Ashford, for their help with Fig. 1.
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