Posted on 10/15/2006 1:29:21 PM PDT by neverdem
A dear friend has been battling cancer for a decade or more. Through a grinding mix of chemotherapy, radiation and all the other necessary indignities of oncology, he has lived on, despite dire prognoses to the contrary.
My friend was the sort of college professor students remember fondly: not just inspiring in class but taking a genuine interest in them — in their studies, their progress through life, their fears and hopes. A wide circle of former students count themselves among his lifelong friends; he and his wife have always welcomed a steady stream of visitors to their home.
Though no one could ever prove it, I suspect that one of many ingredients in his longevity has been this flow of people who love him.
Research on the link between relationships and physical health has established that people with rich personal networks — who are married, have close family and friends, are active in social and religious groups — recover more quickly from disease and live longer. But now the emerging field of social neuroscience, the study of how people’s brains entrain as they interact, adds a missing piece to that data.
The most significant finding was the discovery of “mirror neurons,” a widely dispersed class of brain cells that operate like neural WiFi. Mirror neurons track the emotional flow, movement and even intentions of the person we are with, and replicate this sensed state in our own brain by stirring in our brain the same areas active in the other person.
Mirror neurons offer a neural mechanism that explains emotional contagion, the tendency of one person to catch the feelings of another, particularly if strongly expressed.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Wow. That is a mouthful of shinola!
Enter mirror neurons into the query box at PubMed. They were discovered not too long ago.
wtf is it with the Left and their obssession with technological solutions to everything?
Brain waves, ESP, what are we talking about here? Very interesting thoughts.
I think it's where empathy comes from.
I think they're saying FReepers will live longer (those of us who get along, that is).
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