Mirror neurons shoot the same way when we perform an action or simply when we observe other people doing the same action, the fact that our brain also reacts in these two situations explains learning through imitation, simulation and also empathy, since we end up experiencing the action of others like ours , and this helps us understand it.
The first time mirror neurons were discovered was as part of an animal research experiment, specifically with monkeys, Rizzolatti’s team first identified them in the species Maccaca nemestrina and were located in the pre-motor cortex, the part of the brain that specializes in planning. , selection and execution of movements.
- Following this discovery in monkeys.
- Several more human research was carried out to understand whether we also possessed them and whether there was also a relationship in humans with learning.
- Imitation and empathy.
Human beings know how to recognize the actions of others, we can identify someone’s emotions by just looking them in the face, we may not even know that person, but that does not prevent us from making assumptions about how that person feels. we do things right.
So when we see someone in danger or falling, we can almost feel the pain as if it were happening to us. This type of transfer is innate in humans. That said, we ask ourselves: what mechanism makes it possible in our brains?Everything points to mirror neurons and their connection to different areas of the brain.
In this way, mirror neurons would also be linked to our interpretation of the actions of others, they could not only help us internalize and repeat an action that we have just seen, but also through them we could understand them and make sense of them, understand them. why others act a certain way and if they need our help.
When these specialized neurons are activated, other areas of the brain are also activated, such as the limbic system, which is responsible for emotions, in this way we may recognize the gestures of the face, to return to our past. memoirs and learnings and combine all this information to interpret the situation and make sense of it.
We’re very influential. So much so that the mood of others can affect us, causing our own mood to change. When someone we work with is sad and their face transmits that sadness to us, not only can we know that something is wrong, but that our mood can also be affected. It is therefore the means by which empathy allows us to know what the other is thinking, and it also allows us to put ourselves in the place of the other, in its own situation.
In addition, it has been proven, for example, that forcing laughter can make us feel better. Take the test: one day you’re sad, laugh. Simply simulating the thrill of joy will make you feel better, it will also make you feel better in a group of friends who keep telling jokes and, even if you have a horrible day, you will surely get the laughter of others.
Knowing that other people’s emotions can be highly contagious and affect us, we can understand that the actions others take can also be so, especially if we are young, so exposure to violence in children through television can increase the degree of violence in their behavior, because we tend to imitate what we see, and considering that we are not robots capable of fully choosing our actions.
From an early age, when you’re young, you imitate, first our mom’s gestures, a little older we play doctors, cooks and cops, teenagers have idols and people we imitate, and as adults we seek to be successful people based on what we see in other people we admire.
Throughout our lives we imitate ourselves and put ourselves in each other’s place, even pretending to be someone we are not, so there is film and theatre, arises from our need to imitate and live other realities.
The difference we have with monkeys, who also have mirror neurons that activate when another monkey comes to perform an action, is that we are able to interpret if someone is faking something, knowing each other’s intentionality or making assumptions about it. This is perhaps one of the characteristics that distinguishes us: we have the ability to name each other’s actions, as well as make assumptions, often some and others malicious, about the intentions of others.
Mirror neurons can be activated either from sounds, listening, seeing or thinking about an action, but it will not be the same impact that will cause each of these stimuli, for example, when we see something, we can better understand the situation. to listen to her. In fact, humans work better with visual information, even if the rest of the senses are equally important.
The name they give to these types of neurons says a lot about what they are, the semantics of their two words indicate why they are activated, for example, when we see someone doing something, when they do, they allow our brain to reflect the same pattern of activation as the person performing the action. In other words, for our brains, it’s like we’re doing what the other one’s doing ourselves, so we function like mirrors.
We have an incredible innate ability to identify small gestures that would be very difficult to simulate, so neurons are a good tool to know what the person next to us is like and how to act with it, it is a very adaptive skill that helps us understand and avoid problems.
This phenomenon has been discovered recently, and are currently studying the relationship you may have with many of our behaviors and even certain diseases, for example, you have already found a relationship with autism: the low activity of such neurons detected in the brains of diagnosed people may explain some problems, so being able to study this phenomenon is a ray of hope to better understand autism and find treatment that improves their symptoms and the degree of adaptation of people diagnosed.