ipl-logo

Mirror Neurons Research Paper

913 Words4 Pages

This paper discusses 9 sources that explore the world of mirror neurons. Winerman discusses the first time mirror neurons have been discovered in any animals. The discovery was by Dr. Rizzolatti. Fecteau, Leone, and Theoret talk about the three different forms of empathy, motor, cognitive, and emotional empathy. There are also different parts of the brain that controls the little mirror neurons. There is the superior temporal sulcus, the premotor cortex, and the parietal lobule. A very interesting phenomenon is the phantom limb phenomenon. It is when someone with an amputated limb still has the sensations of the arm there. Empathy and Imitation Have you ever thought about why we can empathize with other people? Have you ever wondered about how we imitate other people, just by seeing them? Only recently did scientists discover that we empathize with and imitate other people because of mirror neurons. From feeling what others feel so we don 't interpret what they are saying in the wrong way to copying a dance move from your instructor. We need empathy to start friendships, …show more content…

The neurons in the monkeys ' F5 section would fire when the monkey made an action like grabbing for a banana. Then Rizzolatti found that when a collegue was grabbing a banana, in some monkeys, their motor neurons will fire. The amazing things was that the motor neurons that fired the second time were the neurons that fired in the first experiment. This was the first significant breakthrough for mirror neurons. After this discovery, the scientists wanted to see these neurons in humans. "Rizzolatti and neuroscientist Luciano Fadiga, MD, PhD, recorded motor-evoked potentials... Iacoboni and his colleagues found activity in some of the same areas of the frontal cortex and the parietal lobule in both situations. "(Winerman, 2005) Monkeys and humans have many things in common. This includes many of the neurons of the

Show More
Related

  • Dr Norman Doidge The Brain That Changes Itself Analysis

    1371 Words  | 6 Pages

    For example, when researchers were working with the mental mirror box, a box that tricks the brain of a patient with a nonexistent limb that the limb is actually there by reflecting the healthy limb, they found that the individual feels as if the limb is present and healthy. Researchers also found that if an individual scratches a particular spot on his or her face, that fulfills the itching sensation that was previously felt on the nonexistent arm. This is because when one area of the brain is not being used, such as the arm map when the arm is amputated, another part of the brain map takes over, such as the face. This is an extremely interesting finding which explains why blind or deaf individuals experience such profound functioning in their other

    Read More

  • Rats To The Rescue Annotated Summary

    281 Words  | 2 Pages

    The study conducted was rats attempting to learn how to open cages that they “knew” contained a trapped rat. After the study was conducted they found that rats “helping behavior” occurred after freeing with no social interaction. With this information they needed to figure out whether non-primate animals are capable

    Read More

  • Jeremy Rifkin A Change Of Heart About Animals Summary

    723 Words  | 3 Pages

    For example, he states that " philosophers and behaviorists have long argued that animals are not capable of self-awareness because they lack individualism" (Rifkin 10). To rebut, Rifkin continues by providing new research that reveal that animals are indeed capable of self-awareness and individualism; referencing orangutans who were given mirrors to explore their body parts at the Washington National Zoo, as well as Chantek at the Atlanta Zoo, who is capable of using his reflection to groom his teeth and adjust his glasses (10). By pointing out the weakness in the proposed objections towards his claim, Rifkin is able to gain credibility with the audience by showing that he is not biased on just one side of the argument, but rather knowledgeable on the subject in its

    Read More

  • Nicholas Carr The Shallows Summary

    1006 Words  | 5 Pages

    His study proved that the monkey’s brain restructured itself. This test of the brain’s capability to change is what’s known as

    Read More

  • Nancy Mairs 'Empathy Exams And On Being A Cripple'

    897 Words  | 4 Pages

    In “The Empathy Exam,” Leslie Jamison. She wrote about one of a psychologist’s test and the test tells that imagining pain could affect our body. The author writes, “Jean Decety, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, use fMRI scans to measure what happens when someone’s brain responds to another person’s pain. He shows test subjects images of painful situations (hand caught in scissors, foot under door) and compares these scans to what a brain looks like when its body is actually in pain. Decety has found that imagining the pain of others activates the same three areas (prefrontal cortex, anterior insula, and anterior singulate) as experiencing pain itself” (26-27).

    Read More

  • Phantom Limb Pain: A Case Study

    214 Words  | 1 Pages

    Because people who have phantom limb pain complain of a constant pain many health practitioners have attempted surgery based upon the premise that it is a nerve issue; however, surgery to fix the pain is unsuccessful. Ramachandran came up with the concept that the somatosensory homunculus on the right side of the brain has the representation of the face next to the hand on the cortex. Because the hand is no longer present, there is no stimulus coming from the hand to the somatosensory cortex. The cortex wants stimulation from the hand therefore the face encompasses the hand section of the somatosensory cortex and begins to activate the hand when the face has a stimulus. This apparent reorganization of the individual’s somatosensory cortex

    Read More

  • Giacomo Rizzolatti's Mirrors In The Mind

    662 Words  | 3 Pages

    Interestingly, these patterns aid people in understanding another’s activity apart from additional explanation. Through experimentation on primates, it was discovered that the mere observance of an occurrence or activity ignited certain

    Read More

  • The Amygdala Case Study

    1061 Words  | 5 Pages

    If one is going to look at both amygdalae, it would be clear that they only differ in function and mirror each others' location. They are identical in structure and appearance and are considered to be part of the limbic system – a system responsible for a person's mood, arousal and emotions as well as intuition related particularly to ensure one's survival. One of t prominent emotions in a human being wanting to survive is fear. The amygdalae both have their own distinct functions. However, they also function separately to induce a common emotion: fear.

    Read More

  • The Chameleon Effect: Masks And Mirrors

    1338 Words  | 6 Pages

    It is quite common in our life that when people are admiring a movie star, when would try their best to mimic his actions. For example, people would imitate his ways of walking or his accents when he is talking. Or, when we are talking to somebody, if his ways of talking or some of actions are really similar to us, we would feel affection from him or her. Why would this kind of situation happen? An experiment which perfectly showed this phenomenon was done by Chartrand and Bargh in 1999, who showed there is a natural tendency for people to mimic other people’s behaviors which is known as Chameleon Effect.

    Read More

  • Pt1420 Unit 1 Study Guide

    464 Words  | 2 Pages

    The angular gyrus, visual association areas, basic visual area and area 37 become activated during the token reading

    Read More

  • The Mirror Fallacy Summary

    595 Words  | 3 Pages

    When we observe actions and/or emotions of someone else our brain will mirror this action and/or emotion. I found this concept interesting, because it made me think of the word, empathy. Many people feel as though they are empathetic, however, are not actually understanding the feelings of someone else, relating to the mirror fallacy. The mirror fallacy, continues by stating that people can only truly be mirroring when they have the exact same body and brain as the other does; this is hard to determine depending on the person. Therefore, the concept of mirroring can definitely mislead us, making us feel as though we are experiencing the same action and/or emotion as another, even if they are feeling the total opposite way.

    Read More

  • Empathy In Ayn Rand's Trigon

    1167 Words  | 5 Pages

    Twisting and turning, she finds herself unable to fall asleep for more than one minute. A common occurrence that she has gotten used to by this point. Being the daughter of a demonic presence that is constantly attempting to overcome and posses her is stressful, combined with its downright annoyance. Lack of sleep has latched onto her like a parasite, sucking the already drained energy that she has left over.

    Read More

  • Effects Of The Amygdala On Depression

    245 Words  | 1 Pages

    Whalen discusses human behavior in light of the amygdala and how it has seen a rise in scientific interest, Whalen compiled diverse research and knowledge of the amygdala, and how the amygdala plays a key role when it comes to psychological issues that affect human behavior. Early chapters focus on animal subjects and how the research opened the door to human amygdala research when it comes to psychology, and how the amygdala affects human emotions and how the emotions are processed. The research conclusion discusses the effects of the amygdala on depression as well as anxiety, in addition to other mental disorders that have an effect on motivation and behavior. The amygdala plays a big part in the emotional behavior in humans when it comes

    Read More

  • The Watchmen Movie Analysis

    1429 Words  | 6 Pages

    He uses the scientific information of the enteric nervous system to show the viewer the similarities and then later gives examples of gut instinct being using in real life situations. He supports his claim with examples like a Russian in charge of an early nuclear mission radar using his gut instinct to determine it must be a computer malfunction and not warn his superiors, which caused him to potentially save the world from nuclear fallout. Another supporting evidence is the studies conducted by Columbia University which tested the instinct of several individuals to see the reliability of the intuition. The clip is similar to. Obviously, the nickname of “second brain” comes from the nervous system, but how many tests have been conducted to test the capabilities of the enteric nervous

    Read More

  • Drugs And Happiness

    469 Words  | 2 Pages

    James Olds and Peter Milner were the two psychologists in charge of said experiment.. They inserted electrodes into the brains of the animals. These electrodes would give a jolt of stimulus to the part of the brain that scientists believe deal with pleasure, the septum and the nucleus accumbens (Olds, Milner). But then they gave the rats a lever, to control when they received the electrodes. The rats would repeatedly press the lever up to 2000 times per hour, bringing them so much pleasure they even resisting having basic necessities, like food and water (Olds).

    Read More

More about Mirror Neurons Research Paper

Open Document