Neurobiology of Human Behavior & How Experience Modifies the Brain
Mirror Neurons
Mirror neurons
Why do sports fans feel so emotionally invested in the game, reacting almost as if they were part of the game themselves? According to provocative discoveries in brain imaging, inside our heads we constantly “act out” and imitate whatever activity we’re observing. As this video reveals, our so-called “mirror neurons” help us understand the actions of others and prime us to imitate what we see [source: PBS NOVA scienceNOW].
Kaltura Mediaspace
Transcript and credits: Mirror Neurons | PBS NOVA scienceNOW, 1/24/2005
Excerpt from: The Brain with David Eagleman | Episode 5: “Why Do I Need You?”
https://mediaspace.wisc.edu/id/1_x0oijxos?width=649&height=401&playerId=25717641
Neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran outlines the fascinating functions of mirror neurons. Only recently discovered, these neurons allow us to learn complex social behaviors, some of which formed the foundations of human civilization as we know it.
V.S. Ramachandran is a mesmerizing speaker, able to concretely and simply describe the most complicated inner workings of the brain. His investigations into phantom limb pain, synesthesia and other brain disorders allow him to explore (and begin to answer) the most basic philosophical questions about the nature of self and human consciousness.
Transcript: The neurons that shaped civilization | VS Ramachandran | TEDIndia 2009 | November 2009
Supplementary Resource (OPTIONAL)
Marco Iacoboni, is a neurologist and neuroscientist on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and is Director of the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation laboratory of the Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center at UCLA. Iacoboni’s lab is arguably the leading lab in human mirror neuron research and he has a close relationship with Giacomo Rizzolatti in whose lab mirror neurons were originally discovered in monkeys.
In the monkey premotor cortex, Rizzolatti and colleagues discovered cells that fire not only when the monkey performs goal oriented actions, but also when it observes the same action performed by somebody else. These cells are called mirror neurons, and are thought to be the evolutionary precursors of neural mechanisms supporting several aspects of social behavior, from imitation to empathy. The many evolutionary steps between small apes and humans suggest that mirror neurons may have also evolved from the monkey brain to the human brain. Investigations of the human brain, however, typically do not allow to study individual cells. Using a rare clinical opportunity, we have recently recorded single and multi-unit spiking activity from human neurons. Our data provide several novel findings: first, direct evidence for the existence of mirror neurons in the human brain; second, the anatomical distribution of these neurons extends from previously reported inferior frontal and inferior parietal cortex to the medial frontal and medial temporal cortices; third, excitatory and inhibitory responses in mirror neurons are equally represented; fourth, a third of human mirror neurons show opposing pattern of excitation and inhibition during action observation and action execution, a neural feature that may help preserving the sense of being the owner of an action during mirroring, and exert control on unwanted imitation. Taken together, these findings suggest that mirror neurons form a multimodal system for flexible integration of the perceptual and motor aspects of actions of the self and others.
