Mirror Neurons
Discovery of Brain Empathy Reflects Light on Human Nature
Sep 7, 2008 Carrie Ann Wharton
In November of 2007, scientists discovered that the same pre-motor cortex brain cells that fire in anticipation of a human body movement also fire when we observe someone else carry out that same action. Meaning literally, that we experience another person’s pain – that the same parts of our brains activate while watching another person’s experience as do when that same experience is our own.
Since then, many studies have suggested that mirror neurons may explain the development of empathy, altruism, language, and self-awareness. Renowned neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran even proclaimed that the discovery will "do for psychology what the discovery of DNA did for biology." The implications have opened new doors of thought concerning areas as diverse as sports, religion, and even romance.
Brain Cells that Support Buddhist Tenets
Mirror neurons, often dubbed “Gandhi neurons” in the scientific community, were recently used to establish a neurological basis for Buddhism. At the Fourth National Conference on Buddhist Studies, Indian neuroscientist Dr. S.V. Prabhu used mirror neurons to refute materialism and emphasize the spiritual inter-connectedness of all people. According to the Asian Tribune, he claimed human beings, as the most highly evolved beings on the planet, have a “template for compassion and therefore the need was to make it a temple.”
Brain Empathy Between Athletes
To return to the more mundane, a study released in Nature Neuroscience in August shows mirror neurons to be crucial to athletic strategy. Researchers in the said study asked a group of 10 elite basketball players, 10 coaches, and 10 novices, to watch a video of people shooting baskets and try to predict, as the ball left their hands, which shots would go in. The elite basketball players had the edge in this prediction game, proving significantly better at it than even the veteran coaches. The study found the difference was due to higher activity in the players' own motor cortexes - especially in the region responsible for moving the hand and forearm - while watching other people take shots.
Similarly, a baseball pitcher’s windup is chock full of similar kinetic clues that can activate the batter's mirror neurons and help him predict the kind of pitch he will get. "This may help explain the fact that a great pitcher, Babe Ruth, was also one of the greatest home run hitters of all time," writes John Milton in Your Brain on Cubs.
Mirror Neurons in Couples' Therapy
Now, some say love is just a game, and rest assured its players have not been excluded from all this hot new neural research. In her article "The Neuroscience of Love" Dr. Sue Johnson identifies the firing of mirror neurons as one of three components that define transcendental moments in her couples’ therapy sessions. Writes Johnson, “We now know that when we are paying a certain kind of attention, [to our partner] our brains respond as if we are acting and feeling the exact same thing… We’ve found that it is in the moments when partners perceive that the other feels their pain … that wounds are forgiven and healed."
Original Discovery of Mirror Neurons
It’s clear that the discovery of mirror neurons in humans holds a lot of promise, especially in terms of teaching humanity to "know thyself." Less than a year since the discovery, science has gleaned new knowledge about the human capacity to intuit each other, to connect, to love and to forgive.
However. Lest humanity get too big for its cranial breeches, it's important to note that the phenomenon of mirror neurons is not limited to the human species. In fact, the original discovery was made, quite by accident, in a monkey, during a rather routine study of motor neurons. On that fateful day, a macaque monkey hooked up to electrodes observed a lab assistant picking up a peanut - and shocked every human in the room by firing the exact same neurons it had when the animal itself picked up a peanut. The resulting “monkey work” was published in 1992– a full 16 years before the same groundbreaking phenomenon was discovered in human beings.
The Buddha
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The Human Brain
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