( This allowed the researchers to investi...)Mirrors in the mind: New studies elucidate how the brain reflects onto itself the actions of others

This allowed the researchers to investigate whether finger movements made by the experimenter's hand were able to facilitate the subject's own finger movements--this facilitation was measured by the ability of benign stimulation of a particular brain region to promote motor signals (corresponding to those finger movements) in the subject's own hand.

The researchers found that such facilitation did occur, but, curiously, it occurred when the illusion was not effective, and subjects felt that the experimenter's hand was not their own. Observing actions interpreted as one's own tended to suppress motor facilitation. Taken together, the findings indicate that the observation of others facilitates the motor system. The authors point out that the findings also suggest that the neural mechanisms that underlie action observation are intrinsically "social"--that the neural mechanisms map the actions of others onto one's own body, rather than initially treating all observed action (whether perpetrated by one's self or by others) as essentially neutral in ownership. These findings inform our understanding of the motor system's role in social cognition, and support previous suggestions that the motor system may have strongly influenced developments in human social evolution.

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Source:Cell Press


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