A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires (activates) both when an animal/human acts and when the animal/human observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron “mirrors” the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting.
V.S. Ramachandran believes they might be very important in imitation and language acquisition.
The most astonishing discovery is that mirror neurons allows us to have empathy about other people’s actions, or even feel what other people are feeling.
A recent experiment shows that if we observe somebody else being touched, under certain conditions we will experiment the touch sensation as if we were being touched!!!. The mirror neurons “fire” or get excited when we see somebody else being touched. However, when this happens, the sensors in our skin send a signal to the brain alerting it that we are not the ones being touched. Nevertheless, if our arm gets anesthetized, the sensors in our skin cannot send the brain this signal. This translates into feeling the touch sensation in our own arm!!!
You can even try some of Ramachandran’s amazing experiments at home:
The Pinocchio experiment with body image
Find 2 willing (and good) friends
Sit on a chair blind-folded, and ask your friend to sit on a chair in front of you, with her back to you.
Ask your other friend to take your right hand and put it on your first friend’s nose
Tap and stroke her nose in a gentle random manner, making exactly identical movements with your other hand, on your own nose.
Continue this for 60 seconds.
About 50% of people will have the extremely odd sensation that their nose is 3 feet long, or somehow their nose is elsewhere!
Body image and a rubber arm
You will need
1 friend
1 fairly realistic rubber hand or arm
Put one of your arms behind a screen or box on the table, so you can’t see it.
Put the rubber arm on the table in a position that looks like it’s your arm. Look at this hand
Now get your friend to stroke both your real hand, and the fake hand.
They must stroke both identically, with the same timing and at the same part of your hand.
You’ll have the strange sensation the rubber hand actually belongs to you.
