Scientific discussion of mirror neurons with no actionable leads

monkey had learned to pucker up his lips, the neuron would fire both when the monkey did this or when the monkey observed another monkey (or even a human) doing this. These motor neurons have been dubbed “mirror neurons”, since they respond during both execution of action and during observation of the same action in a mirror-like fashion.’ Mirror neurons are not active during observation of an appropriate action if there is no goal (1.e., the object is absent) or when an appropriate object is presented alone. Mirror neurons have been discovered both for mouth actions and hand actions, and for both visual and auditory perception of actions. Seeing a previously learned action performed by someone else seems to resonate in some neurons in the motor system almost as if the action were being performed by the observer. It is as if the observed action stimulates some motor neurons to “remember” what it was like to perform action. Of course, this is not memory in the overt sense of conscious recollection, but rather that the experience of execution changes the response of the neurons to observation. Not all the motor neurons respond this way but a small number have been shown to respond when performing and observing an action. Such mirror neurons could provide a correspondence between the experience one has of performing an action and seeing the same action performed by others. These mirror neurons might provide one basis for understanding action. Relating actions we observe to actions we have carried out seems like an important component for comprehension. After all, we knew what we were doing when we performed an action. If that experience is somehow reinstated during observation we might Page |79 attribute our past experience as the interpretation of the present observation. Imitation when observing an action might occur because our motor system is stimulated by observing an action. Coordination of action could occur because in representing others’ actions as if they were our own, our brains may be able to compute the time when we can act without disrupting the other person. This is just the kind of process that is described in Gun Semin’s chapter when he describes how groups of people can synchronize their actions like clapping together. From monkey brains to human intention Of course, relating responses in monkey brains to human brains is neither direct nor simple. Parts of the monkey brain and and parts of the human brain that putatively correspond, while similar, are not identical in number or size or location, and probably do not do exactly the same things, since monkeys and humans have evolved to have somewhat different capacities and behaviors. Furthermore, the study of mirror neurons in monkeys is based on recording the responses of individual neurons, which is not generally possible in humans except in rare cases of medical necessity. The measures we can make on intact human brains come from the responses of many thousands of neurons, so it is difficult to make claims about neurons that respond in producing an action and perceiving the same action. This means that any claims about human mirror neurons depend on a degree of good faith and inference rather than specific empirical demonstration that individual neurons respond both to observing and executing action. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_021325