Posted on 08/16/2009 7:30:43 PM PDT by neverdem
Human see. Human do. As with monkeys, it’s apparently the same for some nerve cells in the brain.
Macaque monkeys have specialized brain cells — called mirror neurons — that activate when a monkey performs an action involving an object, such as picking up a grape, or when watching someone else do the same task. The discovery of these neurons in 1996 led to speculation that they could be involved in everything from simulating others’ actions to language development to autism. There was only one problem: no one had definite proof that such cells exist in humans.
Now a new study in the Aug. 12 Journal of Neuroscience provides strong evidence that humans have mirror neurons too.
Researchers used functional MRI to examine volunteers’ brains for signs of mirror neurons. While in a scanner, volunteers either performed two different types of grips — a precision grip or putting a finger through a ring and pulling the ring — or watched videos of someone else making the movements. Groups of neurons in a part of the brain called the inferior frontal gyrus responded both to watching and doing the same action, researchers led by James Kilner, a neuroscientist at the Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging at University College London in England, reported.
Other groups have tried various techniques to discover human mirror neurons, but without success. Those groups had used volunteers perform or imitate that didn’t involve objects, such as playing rock, paper, scissors or making undirected motions. But interactions with objects are necessary to activate mirror neurons in monkeys, says Scott Grafton, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Kilner succeeded in finding the neurons because his experiments explored the interaction between movements and objects, Grafton says.
“This is a knowledge system that captures information about body...”
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
So, if one used these neurons properly, would it be possible for, say, George Soros to say something and, say, the President Of The United States to do it? (Asking for a friend)
So this is how Karl Rove does it!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.