mirror neurons

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So differences in how our mirror neurons react could account for differences in how well we understand social relationships. Got it.

But what if a particularly sensitive mirror-neuron system could also explain why others actually *feel* better understood by some people (ok, me) even when I admittedly don’t understand them well at all? Because that does happen. It happens a lot.
There’s an old communication trick, of mirroring the body language, general tone, and attitude of a person you’re talking with. My recall of the method is vague, but the conscious mirroring was suggested as a way to make the other person feel more understood, as if you’re in synch with them. It was also supposed to help you better understand their own state of mind and what they might be feeling, improving relations over all.

If my mirror neurons are all fired up during an exchange with a person, I am likely mirroring the other person’s body language, word patterns, etc, in a subtle but detectable way. Just like in the communication trick mentioned above, my mirroring them would in fact make them *feel* more understood.

In fact the whole trick might work *because* of mirror neurons - consciously mirroring someone might make them subconsciously assume that neural mirroring was going on. I also have to wonder if conscious mirroring triggers and enhances the mirror neuron system - which would explain the “better understanding” part of the trick.
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Could a person develop a particularly sensitive system of mirror neurons? How?

And (since this is all about my self obsession) why would *my* mirroring system be more reactive, in particular?

Remembering that this is a lot of speculation based on a quick googling of cutting edge neuro science, here’s a few uneddycated guesses:

• It might be a genetic twist of fate, either inherited or by chance. I didn’t run across any studies that had a thing to do with this, and I don’t see a lot of evidence of it in my family tree…but it’s a possibility.
• Environmental impact on brain development. I’m a twin. Twins often mirror each other incessantly, even as infants; it’s part of our learning process. Because this intense mirroring/learning happens in the brains earliest development, it might have a very marked impact on the development of mirror neuron systems. It’s also interesting to ponder the fraternal/identical differences - identical twins might mirror each other better, but be less likely to extend the mirroring outside the “self” of the twinset. (I’m fraternal)
• Familiarity and Experience Throughout my life, I’ve focused on feelings, making an informal experiential study of emotions, intent, and motivation, both my own, and others. The resulting familiarity might have increased my mirror neuron responses to these sorts of things, just like a dancer’s familiarity with a dance move increases their mirror neuron response to that move.
• Intentional blurring of ego boundaries. I’ve practiced many different methods of trance and meditation, much of it pseudo-Buddhist, focused on compassion and dissolving boundaries of ego between self and others. Mirror neurons are sometimes called “Dalai Lama” Neurons, for the very reason that they don’t seem to recognize the boundary between self and other. Could mirror neurons be activated more strongly by this sort of practice? It makes some sense, to me.

So… there are differences between people’s mirroring systems, and there are some reasons that mine in particular might be more sensitive/reactive. That reactivity might make it easier for me to “get into the heads” of other people and understand them, better than some other people without that sensitivity.

(Still with me? Do i sound too egotistical?)

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Ok, so mirror neurons really do seem to be an element in how well we relate to other people’s feelings, motivations, and so on.

But are some people more tuned in than others? *Are* there differences between individual’s mirror neuron systems? And why might mine, in particular, be different? (IF they are! )

Apparently, mirror neuron systems and their reactions do vary, from person to person.

• In autistic subjects , mirror neurons react to the subject’s own movements - but do not mirror the movements of others. The more severe the autism, the less mirroring the mirror neurons do. Since autism is marked by very poor understanding of social relationships, this seems to confirm the link between mirror neurons and understanding social relationships.
• Gender differences have shown up in the mirror neuron systems of men and women. It’s not clear if this is biological, vs cultural, but it makes evolutionary sense: females need to be more empathic when dealing with infants, males less empathic in order to hunt and without over identifying with their prey. (The link above is to the actual research paper. I don’t pretend to understand it - please explain it to me, if you do)
• Familiarity and experience affects the reactions of mirror neurons. Mirrored responses to movement are stronger when we’ve experienced the movement ourselves. So when images of a dance are shown, a trained dancer’s brain will react differently to watching dance moves than a non-dancer’s brain.

So yes, different people’s mirror neurons behave differently, both according to their own brain make up, and their experiences. And yes, mirror neurons are probably involved in understanding social relationships, learning, and predicting the intent/mindset of others.

It’s a good guess then, that an especially sensitive mirror neuron system would lend itself to easier and more accurate perceptions about other people’s intent, motivation, and emotions.

Since I don’t have access to fMRI equipment and the people-of-greater-brain I’d need to interpret the results, I can’t tell you if my own mirror system (or yours, for that matter) is particularly sensitive.

But I can make a guess that those of use who do seem particularly tuned into others emotions and intentions probably have a pretty active set of mirror neurons. I can also guess that the oblivious oaf who cranks his car stereo up at 4am has a mental mirror that needs a serious cleaning with Windex.

But what might create the increased mirror neuron activity some of us might have? What might make it more sensitive?

Stay tuned for more of the hypothesis and the post that ate my weekend.

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In a fearless quest to find answers, I dove into the wilderness of Google for what I thought was light research. In the end, it wasn’t light at all. I found myself wading through research papers that were complicated and fascinating… and in the process lost a few things I should have linked to. Oops.

It turns out that I wasn’t the first to think mirror neurons might be linked to empathy and such — Many not-so-layman-types (ie: neuroscientists) have done research on the topic of mirror neurons and empathy. Their studies show that mirror neurons don’t just react to perceived motion; they react to perceived sensation, too.

If a person sees someone being poked with a needle, the mirror neurons associated with pain light up, just as if he had been poked.

If a person is shown an image of someone else reacting to a noxious smell, neurons light up in the same part of the olfactory area of the brain as if they’d been exposed to the scent. Mirror neurons react to images of touch (a feather duster on skin) sounds ( like laughter) and as already mentioned, to witnessed actions, like grasping an object.

Even more interesting, the reaction of mirror neurons increases when there is a discernible intent behind the observed actions… while the brain will react to an image of a hand holding a coffee cup, it reacts *more* if the image is clearly of a hand grasping a coffee in order to drink it.

Likewise, when the subject is familiar with the action being demonstrated, the reactions are stronger - a dancer’s mirror neurons are more excited by witnessing dance moves he or she is familiar with, than with those they don’t know how to perform.

But these responses aren’t triggered when subjects witness robots grasps an object: the mirror neurons are apparently only attuned to input that reflects our own biological image.
The type of mirroring that goes on in these neurons is different than the intellectual exercise of imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes. It isn’t conscious: the mirror neurons of your brain automatically and involuntarily reacts as if you were the other person, so that your brain experiences a recreation of what you witness other people feeling.

How cool is that? Empathy with a neurological basis.

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Yesterday morning, a friend graciously thanked me for making the effort to understand her.

Then she remarked, casually, that maybe understanding other people isn’t such much of an effort, from me.
I’d never thought about it before, but she’s right. An empathic response comes very naturally for me. When watching or listening to someone, I just shift into their perspective, and something about the way I communicate seems to make people feel understood, at least judging by an informal survey of friends.
Being me (and rather self-obsessed) I immediately started wondering *why* this is easier for me. What makes me different? (Don’t you ever wonder that? How and why you’re different from other people?)

Anyway, I remembered a study I’d recently run across on mirror neurons, and began to wonder about the empathic implications of these curious braincells.

Mirror neurons are interesting things. They’re a type of motor neuron, and like all motor neurons, they send electrical impulses. Mirror neurons fire just like other neurons, sending signals when, for instance we make a certain action (like raising our hand).
But mirror neurons don’t just fire when we perform an action; they also fire when we watch someone else do that same action. If you raise your hand, certain neurons in your brain fire. But if you see another person raise their hand, the mirror neurons in your brain will fire just as if *you* had raised your own hand.

It’s all very monkey see, monkey do-ish.

It makes sense that this reflection-of-others neural process might make people more sensitive to others, making us able to put ourselves in the place of another, and to understand and feel their viewpoint.

Could differences in mirror neurons explain why one person (me) might be better at understanding other people’s (my friend’s) motivations and feelings? If so, how and why are my mirror neurons and their firing different?

Thus began the meandering research project that ate my weekend.

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