Transcript The Mirror Neuron System (MNS)

From Actions to Empathy and Morality – A Neural
Perspective
.
Istvan Molnar-Szakacs
 Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior, David Geffen
School of Medicine, UCLA
 Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA
 Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity, UCLA
 Research into
 Neural basis of Nonverbal communication
 Mirror neurons and the social brain, music, autism, and
understanding intentions of others
 Neural basis of Self representation & creativity
The Mirror Neuron System (MNS)
 Discovery published in 1992 when found macaque
monkeys
 Subset of Neurons activates both while observing and
while performing:
 Actions such as grasping
 Emotions such as sadness
 Watching someone receive painful events such as shocks
 “Thus, our capacity for empathy – the ability to share
another’s emotions and feelings – is based in a simple
‘mirroring’ mechanism implemented by the human MNS
that allows us to use the same neural resources to
represent states of the self and others in an overlapping
way.”
 http://video.pbs.org/video/1615173073/
Section 1: Introduction
 “The aim of the current paper is to review and summarize
recent research on the human MNS, asserting that this
system may provide the neural scaffold for empathy and, as
a result, may have served as a biological substrate for the
evolution of our sophisticated sociality and the morality that
governs it.”
 “Thus, our capacity for empathy – the ability to share
another’s emotions and feelings – is based in a simple
‘mirroring’ mechanism implemented by the human MNS
that allows us to use the same neural resources to represent
states of the self and others in an overlapping way.”
Section 1.1: The Human Mirror Neuron System
 Study showed subset of motor neurons are activated while both
watching and performing hand movements (Fadiga et al., 1995).
 Increased Motor Evoked Potentials (MEPs) in hand muscles
while watching hand movements but not while observing other
types of movements or objects
 Same muscles that would be used to perform the task.
 Performing an action produces approx. twice the neural activity
as watching it. Imitation(performing while watching) produces the
greatest activity.
 “mirror resonance systems”
 He claims that “action and perception are inseparable” both
behaviorally and in neural networks.
Section 1.2: Intention Understanding
 The human mirror neuron system “encodes the perceived
intentions that give rise to overt motor actions” as shown by
Iacoboni et al., 2005.
 Actions imbedded within context led to more MNS activity than
those without context.
 Different contexts led to different levels of activation.
 “These findings imply that the human MNS is sensitive to the context
within which actions are embedded, and codes actions that imply
different intentions differently, providing support for the hypothesis
that human mirror areas mediate the understanding of the intentions
behind other’s actions.”
Section 1.2: Intention Understanding
 No difference in mirror neuron activation between those persons
simply watching an action and those actively trying to deduce
intentions.
 “This finding showed that the representation of intentions and
actions is automatic and pre-cognitive – the MNS is activated
without conscious effort (Iacoboni et al., 2005). This implies
that ‘mirror neurons are a kind of ‘neural wi- fi’ that monitors
what is happening in the other people. This system tracks their
emotions, what movements they’re making, what they intend
and it activates, in our brains, precisely the same brain areas as
are active in the other person. This puts us on the same
wavelength and it does it automatically, instantaneously and
unconsciously’ (Goleman, 2006).”
Section 1.2: Intention Understanding
 Meaningful gestures produced stronger MEPs than those that
were not meaningful, regardless of the participants familiarity
with the gesture or meaning (Molnar- Szakacs et al., 2007).
 Which part of ethnicity created the difference? Was it because
of culture, race, or the combination?
 Are there detectable universalities when our actions have
meanings vs. when they do not?
Section 2: Emotional Empathy
 “A neural mechanism like the MNS, that uses our own
representations of intentions and actions in order to understand
the same in others is the ideal neural substrate for empathy,
defined as the inter-personal sharing of experiences, emotions
and feelings. In fact, empathy may be considered a special case of
a more general state-matching reaction (resonance) that is fast,
automatic and pre-cognitive.”
 Researchers found a “similar network of activated areas –
including the premotor face area, the posterior IFG, the superior
temporal sulcus, the insula, and the amygdala – for both imitation
and observation of emotional facial expressions (Carr et al.,
2003).
 Imitating it different than expressing an emotion because you feel it.
 Watching emotional recruited portions of the limbic system in
addition to MNS which are important for emotional processing.
Section 2.1: Cognitive Empathy
 “Cognitive empathy requires that we actively think about, or
reflect on others’ actions and emotional states, which requires
effortful, higher-level cogitations, including perspective-taking or
mentalizing.”
 Double Dissociation of Emotional and Cognitive empathy.
 You don’t have to have one to have the other.
 They (can) operate independently.
Section 3: Development
of social evaluation and empathy
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Section 4:
From actions to empathy to morality
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Section 5: Conclusion
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Future Research
 Are mirror neuron activation dependent on or related
to pre-existing ability? (whether we can do something
and/or are good at it, either physical or emotional)
 Investigate mirror neurons in motor areas for people who
can’t use those areas and never learned how (for instance
people born with paralyzed limbs, or children who have not
learned how to do those things yet).
 It could help isolate the problem if we know mirror neuron
activity relates to ability.
 This knowledge could provide advancement towards
medication or therapy for people with inability to have lack of
emotional or cognitive empathy.
Discussion Questions
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