Tag Archives: mirror neuron theory. If we still assume that we have them, then could they be the reason that people are able to feel the emotions of other people and be capable of empathy? How to fix "broken mirrors"

If you see a person eating a lemon, your brain will automatically use the same parts of the brain as if you were actually eating a lemon. As a result, you can even taste it and wrinkle your face at such a sour fruit. All this happens thanks to the presence of mirror neurons in the brain, which promote understanding and empathy for other people. However, their functions are not limited to this.

Mirror neuron theory

In the early 1990s scientific world talked about a new discovery in neurobiology. Italian neuroscientist G. Rizzolatti discovered the so-called mirror neurons. During the work of the research group under his leadership, a method was used to record the responses of individual nerve cells. The results were surprising.

It has been found that while a person performs any actions and while observing how someone else performs these actions, the same neurons in the brain are activated in the same way. This is what unique feature mirror neurons.

Thus, the foundations for their further study were laid. Today they have become one of the most popular research objects in neuroscience. In the 2000s, linguists also became interested in mirror neurons. Scientists saw in them a possible explanation for the long-standing question of how language acquisition occurs.

Functions

V.V. Kosonogov in his work “Mirror neurons: a brief scientific review” highlights the results of research in this area. In particular, the author touches on the topic of the dynamics of views on the functions of the group of neurons being studied. The first definitions of the functions of mirror neurons were obvious - activity during imitation. Later, new hypotheses began to appear that connected this discovery with a number of pressing problems of modern biological and humanities disciplines.

As it turned out, the neurophysiological level of imitation is determined by a group of cells located in several areas of the cerebral cortex, and most likely developing from birth. Through imitation, these studies involved such phenomena and problems as:

• empathy, which refers to the ability to understand the feelings and emotions of other people and empathize with them;
• human language and speech;
• understanding someone else's consciousness;
• acting skills, which involve getting used to the role;
• a construct that describes the ability to understand the mental content of other individuals;
• autism;
• development of socioculture carried out through imitation.

Imitation

Imitation is understood as the reproduction by an individual of the behavior, actions, movements of another individual. Learning through imitation, or so-called “imitation learning,” involves the individual formation of new models and forms of behavior, but only through direct perception of the actions of others.

In this context, the influence of mirror neurons on the behavior of children is very great. After all, imitation plays a key role in the acquisition of social, communication and motor skills. Many modern scientists, for example, V. Ramachandran and L. Oberman, attach great importance to imitation as an important component of the process of social, scientific and technological development.

Behavior switches

Mirror neurons, according to V.V. Kosonogov, can be considered as some kind of behavior switches that are located in the associative zones of the cortex cerebral hemispheres and connect motor and sensory departments.

When a person perceives an action performed by another individual, a certain group of neurons located in the sensory areas is excited. Moreover, it is excited according to a certain pattern, which is characteristic of this particular action. Next, a reaction occurs between the layers of mirror neurons, as a result of which a certain group of motor neurons in the cortex is activated and imitation occurs.

Empathy

Translated from Greek, “empathy” means “sympathy.” This term refers to the emotional responsiveness of one individual to the experiences of another. In the process of empathizing, a person feels feelings identical to those observed. Empathy can manifest itself not only in relation to the observed or imagined feelings of other people, but also to the experiences of heroes of various works of art, theatrical productions, cinema.

Empathy plays a fundamental role in social life, since it ensures understanding and sharing of the feelings, goals and needs of one individual by another. In a sense, empathy is part of the process of understanding someone else's mind. This means that in many ways it is similar to imitation.

Yet the neurobiology of empathy is quite different from the neurobiology of imitation in the general sense. This difference is due to the fact that in the first case, parts of the brain that are traditionally associated with emotions play a large role. Very generally, we can say that the neuroanatomical basis of empathy is a system of mirror neurons and limbic system, with scientists paying special attention to the amygdala and insula.

Speech

Many scientists believe that in the process of human evolution, speech arose on the basis of imitation of various sounds and gestures. Human speech, in their opinion, is mediated by a system of mirror neurons found in Broca's area of ​​the human brain. Traditionally it is associated with speech.

Mirror neurons allow people to imitate each other and perhaps understand the subtle movements of others' lips and tongues. This gives impetus to the evolutionary development of language abilities. At the behavioral level, speech can be considered as a highly complex ability to quickly create motor programs for articulatory organs.

Thus, with the help of mirror neurons in the brain, through the process of imitation, a person learns to speak and understand speech. Disruption of these neurons can lead to various types of mental disorders associated with speech problems, including autism.

Understanding other people's thoughts

By the term “understanding of someone else’s consciousness,” scientists mean a person’s ability to draw conclusions about the entire set of his mental states, which are the reason for his actions and actions. Such states include the following: intentions, desires, hopes, emotions that are the cause of the actions of another individual.

Thus, understanding someone else's consciousness is a person's ability to reflect the consciousness of other people. The ability to understand the intentions associated with the actions of others is a fundamental component within social behavior.

Today, on the understanding of someone else’s consciousness, caused by mirror neurons, in psychology explanations are built of the mechanisms of learning, the development of human thinking and his abilities to interact in society, as well as good acting abilities.

Autism or distorted mental development

Currently, many scientists who study the problem of autism tend to assign a large role in the symptoms of this disease to the participation of the mirror neuron system of the brain.

As a rule, at the behavioral level, autism is characterized by difficulties arising during social contacts, the inability to understand and use verbal and non-verbal methods of communication, a lag in school learning, and a lack of understanding of the metaphorical meaning of words and sentences.

These symptoms also complement dysfunction in the brain’s representation of the actions of other individuals, imitation, empathy, and understanding of others’ consciousness. These abilities are successive links in one chain and serve to ensure social interaction between people.

V. Ramachandran and L. Oberman, considering dysfunctions of the recently discovered mirror system of the brain as the cause of autism, talk about the possibility of discovering new approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of this disorder.

How to fix "broken mirrors"

What happens if the mirror neurons themselves are damaged? As V.V. writes Kosonogov, it is not so easy to damage these neurons en masse, since they are distributed throughout the cerebral cortex.

For example, if a person has suffered a stroke, then only some of these neurons are damaged. Another example is when a person has damage to the left side of the brain, he is sometimes unable to understand the actions of other people.

The most serious damage to the brain's mirror neurons is associated with genetic disorders. And most often, this happens when a diagnosis of autism is made.

Because the mechanism for reflecting the emotions and actions of others is “broken” in the autistic brain, they lose the ability to understand what others are doing. They cannot show empathy because they cannot experience similar emotions when seeing joy or sadness. All this is alien to them, unfamiliar and may even frighten them. Therefore, autistic people try to hide and avoid communication.

According to scientists, there is the possibility of the most complete recovery of autistic children if this is done in a very early age. In the very first stages, they recommend showing great sentimentality and sensitivity when interacting with such children.

Thus, the mother and the specialist must ensure maximum social and tactile contact with the child. This is necessary in order to develop motor and emotional skills. Games with a child are very important, but not competitive ones, but ones where success comes only through joint efforts. This way, over time, the child will be able to understand that being together with someone is not scary at all, and even, on the contrary, is important and useful.

Neurobics

American neuroscientist L. Katz and writer M. Rubin came up with a method for training the brain - neurobics, which they offered to the world through their book "Fitness for the Mind." The authors suggest 83 funny exercises that help improve memory and development intellectual abilities. Having chosen the ones you like, you can immediately start training.

Neurobics is based on the task of activating new neural pathways. When a person has to do the same routine work, it becomes difficult for him to concentrate on something new. His concentration drops and his memory begins to weaken.

But if you do daily things not on the usual autopilot, but in some unexpected, even if somewhat chaotic, way, then the brain will tune in to building fresh connections between nerve cells and restoring them if they were lost.

Fun exercises

As examples of exercises for the development of mirror neurons, aimed at enhancing concentration, improving memory and intelligence, we can cite the following simple techniques, which nevertheless have a scientific basis:

• Try to become ambidexterous. This means increasing the involvement of the left hand for right-handers, and the right hand for left-handers.
• Learn and develop new skills and abilities.
• Try on different images, change your image.
• Rearrange the house, change the interior.
• Learn jokes and anecdotes, come up with interesting stories and use them in conversation.

Routine and habits put the brain to sleep. Novelty, on the contrary, has a stimulating effect on the sensory inputs of the brain, and contributes to a more vivid perception of life, making it more colorful and memorable.

Physical exercise

Traditional physical activity also has a significant impact on brain activity. Researchers at the University of Illinois, USA, led by A. Kramer, found that regular moderate physical activity helps to increase the volume of the human cerebral cortex in the frontal and parietal regions. These areas of the brain are responsible for RAM, attention and its switching.

According to scientists, this requires 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity each week, and in addition to this, daily walking of at least 500 meters.

How thoughts put the sick on their feet

As G. Rizzolatti notes, modern Scientific research mirror neurons are aimed at the practical application of the data obtained. The introduction of new knowledge is already being successfully carried out in various spheres of life, including medicine.

Motor mirror neurons cause a person to reproduce in his thoughts the same action that he sees. This happens regardless of whether it is done directly by another person, or whether it is shown on a TV or computer screen.

It has been repeatedly noticed that while watching boxing matches, people's muscles tense, sometimes even their fists clench. This is a typical neuro-effect. This is precisely what the new technology for restoring patients after strokes, Alzheimer’s disease and other diseases in which a person’s memory forgets movements is based on.

The essence new technology is as follows: if the patient’s neurons are not completely “broken”, but only their work is disrupted, then with the help of a visual stimulus it is possible to activate the nerve cells and force them to reflect movements. This will restore the correct functioning of mirror neurons.

To do this, a person needs to be shown the necessary actions under certain conditions. This technology is called “action and observation therapy.” As experiments have shown, therapy provides significant improvement in the rehabilitation of stroke patients.

However, the most surprising result, according to the scientist, was found when this therapy was used in a different direction - to restore people who had received serious injuries and were caught in car crashes. For example, when a person's leg is put in a cast, he then needs to learn to walk again. Usually in such cases the painful gait remains quite long time, the patient limps for a long time.

Traditional learning and training takes a lot of time. At the same time, when a specially created film with appropriate movements is shown, the necessary motor neurons are activated in the victim’s brain, and the person begins to walk normally in almost a few days. Even for scientists it looked like a miracle.

How to cheer yourself up

Thanks to mirror neurons, people have the ability to subconsciously perceive and feel the emotions of other people or movie characters. Thus, it turns out that while watching dramas, horror films, negative news or tragic reports on TV, a person is automatically charged with the same emotions. As a result, he may feel upset, scared, and sad. He may activate the production of the stress hormone - cortisol, which provokes disturbances in attention, memory, sleep, and thyroid function.

Fortunately, the principle of mirror neurons works in a similar way in a constructive and creative way. If a person communicates with positive, cheerful people, watches films with such characters, then the same positive emotions arise in his brain.

Despite the fact that mirror neurons and their functions were discovered only recently, the research results are already finding their practical application. Moreover, they are applicable in human daily life. Understanding the principle of their work allows everyone to develop memory and intelligence, manage their attention, improve their mood and health, and also spread the vibes of their cheerfulness to others.

This is what a mirror neuron looks like healthy person. Photo: NIH
Based on materials from the book “Why I Feel What You Feel” by Joachim Bauer.

“Nerve cells that are capable of implementing a certain program in their own body, but which are also activated themselves when observing or otherwise empathizing with the execution of this program by another individual, are called mirror neurons.[...]

It is enough for a person to hear a conversation about some action to resonate mirror neurons. Conclusion: Not only observations, but also any perception of a process performed by others can activate mirror neurons in the observer's brain. (1) [...]

Action-controlling nerve cells are not only activated when observing the actions of others. They also give signals when the subject is asked to imagine the corresponding action. But the strongest signal comes from them in cases where a person is asked to synchronously reproduce an observed action. [...]

The actions of other people perceived by a person inevitably cause the activity of mirror neurons in the observer. They trigger their own pattern of actions in his brain, and exactly the one that would work if he himself performed the perceived action. The process of mirror reflection occurs synchronously, arbitrarily and without any reflection. An internal neural copy of the perceived action is created, as if the observer himself is performing this action. The execution of this action in reality is the free choice of the observer, but he cannot prevent the phenomenon of resonance of mirror neurons, which activate the action programs embedded in them in his internal representation. (2) [...]

To make everyday interpersonal relationships proceeded more or less smoothly, a number of conditions must be met, and constantly, at the current moment in time. We consider most of these conditions to be absolutely natural, and we believe that they should be fulfilled, although they are not at all self-evident. We are talking about unconscious (unreflected) confidence, what experts call implicit assumptions. Confidence, without which it would be uncomfortable to live, is that the behavior of the people around us at the moment is more or less predictable at the next moment in time, that is, it corresponds to our expectations within certain limits. This applies not only to such banal motor processes as the path of a person’s movement in a busy pedestrian area or on a mountain slope filled with skiers, but, first of all, to the expected behavior and actions of other people. (3) During a reception or evening party, of course, we will not consciously think about the danger or safety of a given situation without reason. But we orient ourselves, without realizing it, precisely in such a way that we receive implicit knowledge about whether we can expect peaceful behavior from those present. True, this does not always happen.
Everyone is familiar with situations when some a person who is not doing anything wrong at the moment gives us an unpleasant feeling, a feeling of potential threat. It is only when we suddenly lose our sense of security and confidence that we realize how much we depend on implicit confidence. Mirroring phenomena allow us to predict situations - good or bad. They create in us a feeling that we call intuition and which allows us to anticipate and guess about future events. (4) Intuitions cannot be ignored. Intuition is, so to speak, a special, softened form of implicit confidence, a kind of premonition or seventh sense.[...]

When we perceive even part of a sequence of actions, mirror nerve cells in the brain, and thereby in the psyche of the observer, spontaneously and regardless of our will show the entire process. Perceiving short parts of a sequence may be enough to intuitively know, even before the entire process is completed, what outcome can be expected from the observed action. That is, mirror neurons, coming into resonance, not only make observed actions spontaneously understandable for our own experience. Mirror neurons are able to complete observed fragments into a probable expected complete sequence of actions. The programs accumulated in command neurons are not arbitrarily created, but represent typical sequences based on the totality of all previous experiences received by the individual. (5) Since most of these sequences correspond to the experience of all members of the social community, the command neurons form a common interpersonal action space.
Intuitive ideas arise in a person without the participation of his consciousness. For example, a person may only have an unpleasant feeling, but he does not know the reason for its appearance. This is due, among other things, to the fact that subconscious, that is, consciously not registered perceptions, can cause the activation of our mirror neurons. However, different people have this “gut feeling” about the actions of other people to varying degrees. [...]

Much of what is attributed to mystical telepathic abilities finds its explanation here. People who are in a close emotional connection with each other know the “paths of movement” of their loved ones. For example, our brain provides us with intuitive assumptions about what a loved one can do now, even if at the moment he is very far away. [...]

The faculty of intuitive understanding, this gift of our mirror nerve cells, in no way protects us from delusion and error. Perceiving situations through the neurobiological mirroring system can lead to the activation of programs that at first appear to the brain as a suitable continuation of the visible event, but then turn out to be erroneous. This is due to the fact that many everyday situations are ambiguous and allow for different options for continuation. In interpreting situations last role individual previous experience plays a role. Someone whose experience shows that people who make a pleasant impression often show an unexpectedly unpleasant side of themselves reacts to friendly people differently than people with a different experience. For those who have frequently experienced disappointment after the collapse of initially promising situations, this experience will be present in neuroscience programs as a typical sequence of events.
However, one-sided interpretative schemes derived from certain prior experiences are not the only reason why intuition can be misleading. Unfortunately, it is not protected from deception of consciousness, because intuition is not everything. Where she fails, reason must come to the rescue. (6) Thinking critically about what we see in and experience in others has absolute value. However, on the other hand, rational analysis is not immune from errors when we're talking about about interpreting our perception of another person. Rational assessments of interpersonal circumstances may well mislead us. Another disadvantage of our intellectual-analytical apparatus is its slowness. Thinking about someone takes longer than making an intuitive assessment. Mirror neurons operate spontaneously and quickly. Their selection is available online.
Conclusion: intuition and rational analysis cannot replace each other. Both play an important role and should be used in combination with each other. The likelihood of correctly assessing a situation is greatest when intuition and intellectual analysis of the situation come to similar conclusions and complement each other. The limits of the possibilities of both intuitive and analytical assessment indicate the outstanding role of language, in other words, clarification of circumstances, situations, etc. in a conversation. Intuition can exist without language, but only language allows us to communicate explicitly about intuitions.[...]

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My comments are based on the theory of abuse.

1. A normal person is able to respond adequately not only to the suffering he observes of another person, but also to messages that this or that is causing pain to the Other. What happens in case of abuse? The abuser sees, hears and knows about the suffering of his partner. This does not evoke an adequate response in him: in his behavior, actions, reactions, words. Moreover, the degree of violence is constantly increasing. This gives me the right to assert that the observed state of the victim gives the abuser, if not joy, then clearly some kind of positive impression. In such cases we can talk about sadism - perverted and sophisticated cruelty.

2. It can be assumed that the suffering of the victim, read through the mirror neurons of the abuser, triggers a certain program of action in him. And this is not a program of empathy and compassion. This is a program of violence. The greater the suffering the abuser sees, the greater his desire to torment his victim. The question of when and by whom a defective program of action was laid down is not a question without answers: parents (or other educators), society, lifestyle, environment, stereotypes, gender education, etc. See comment #5

3. One of the mysteries for ordinary people is the question: “Why doesn’t she leave?” He beats, cheats, mocks, but the victim endures everything and continues to remain in such a relationship. Eat a lot different options The answers to this question include Stockholm syndrome, identification with the aggressor, and the state of the victim’s personality after a long period of violence. The mechanism of mirror neurons gives us another answer: after the abuser has admitted his guilt and repented, a “honeymoon” period always follows, and the abuser’s partner’s prediction of his expected behavior is triggered; the same as all normal people. Well, a person made a mistake, no matter who it happens to, but he realized and understood everything, now he behaves perfectly, which means everything will work out. The victim again and again “predicts” that the abuser’s behavior will improve after the aggressor admits his mistakes. And abusers always admit it in order to continue torturing, because non-stop violence will force the victim to escape before the abuser destroys her personality. This is one of the most insidious traps of abuse - the victim believes that her partner is a normal person. Each of us is brought up to believe that other people are normal! That people can make mistakes, etc. A critical mass of ugly behavior must accumulate for the victim to wake up. The size of this critical mass is different for everyone. Let's also take into account how girls are socialized: a woman must endure and forgive. It is equal to being feminine, sweet, good, wise, strong woman. And everyone wants to be exactly like that, and that’s normal!
And now let’s add the mechanism of gaslighting, actively used by any type of abuser, when words, facts, actions, emotions are denied, when the victim, day after day, is shouted at by both the abuser and the abuser that she is being too dramatic, she misunderstood that normal people have such emotions they don’t feel that everyone lives like this, that she makes a mountain out of a molehill, etc. And she doesn’t leave... The victim remains because her mirror neurons were deceived by a person with psychopathology, because she is immersed in his plot of madness.

4. A phenomenon that I encountered: all the victims of abuse with whom I had the opportunity to communicate recall that intuitively at the beginning (the very beginning) of the relationship they did not like their abuser. Let me quote: “I literally got used to him. And then I realized that I loved him.”

5. Programs that trigger mirror neurons of abusers were formed 1.or in childhood, 2.or in a traumatic situation (here I think 0.1%), 3.or are a product of society. Most likely this is a combination of 1 and 3. This is a system of value systems laid down by the family, an acquired way of thinking from the parental environment, multiplied by gender education, social processes in society and the abuser’s social circle. Since any abuser does not have a normal stable ego structure, in psychological development, without passing the mark of 3 years, is not able to see the subject in anyone other than himself, then we can safely say that the tolerance to violence that exists has a huge influence on his programs today in society, as well as the lack of experience of “getting hit with a bat” of fair retribution in his lived life scenario. Alice Miller writes a lot about how violence experienced in childhood, which the child could not cope with as an adult, spills out on other people. She examines this beautifully through the example of Hitler's biography. I think this is compounded by the lack of retribution from victims and society for bestial behavior in adulthood. The abuser, with the naivety and innocence of a three-year-old child, denies the damage done so successfully that even the victim begins to believe it, and those around him almost definitely believe it. Moreover, after a destructive abuse, the victim simply does not have the resource to engage in retribution - to collect himself and run away. Moreover, the stereotype works - it is not good to take revenge. But I'm not talking about revenge here. A worthy retribution for any abuser is the publicity of his art. But in this case, we are faced with shame among victims of abuse. Shame is false in its essence: someone who acts like a non-human should be ashamed.

6. You can only leave abuse through a change in your thinking paradigm, because the abuser will play on your mirror neurons like a balalaika. Only through understanding the experience of relationships, through reviewing actions, through understanding what is happening, cleared of various stereotypes and clichés, will you be able to free yourself. Forever. Critical thinking and deliberation are necessary in order to get rid of mental pain, never return to this abuser, and not fall into a new abuse.

The topic of mirror neurons and empathy has already been raised on the pages of this site, especially in the context of hypnosis. So, let’s summarize the currently available information about mirror neurons.

1. Empathic empathy is an innate ability of the brain, which is largely mediated by mirror neurons.

Many authors have reported that observing the actions of other people contributes to the emergence of a similar style of behavior. Back in 1890, William James described ideomotor actions - when the thought of some action involuntarily increases the likelihood of performing this action. Chartrand et al. (1999) study of the so-called. chameleon effect, which consists in the fact that a person begins to unconsciously imitate the posture, mannerisms, facial expressions and other aspects of the behavior of his communication partners in such a way that his behavior begins to become as similar as possible to the behavior of people in his environment. In addition, it was found that people who are more empathetic by nature exhibit this effect with to a greater extent. In many of the experiments below, the authors note that more empathic people have a more active mirror neuron system.

2. The mirror neuron system develops in humans during the first year of life. Its main functions are modeling mental states and imitating the actions of others based on sensory information. The mirror neuron system is thought to provide our ability for language.

Falck-Ytter et al. (2006) demonstrated that 12-month-old children have a specialized action recognition system that is not observed in 6-month-old children. This system causes tracking and predicting eye movements when a child observes, for example, an adult reaching for an object. The operation of such a system, according to the authors, requires an understanding of the interaction between the hand and the object to which it is directed. A 6-month-old child follows the hand itself, while a 12-month-old child, based on the direction of movement of the hand, guesses which object it is moving towards and turns his eyes to the target object.

Other authors have studied the mechanisms of SZN in the context of imitation. Subjects learned guitar chords by observing and imitating experienced guitarists. While watching their mentors play, the subjects' brains activated in the prefrontal cortex, and this activity increased even more when the subjects tried to imitate the game and repeat chords after their mentors. In addition, at this time there was additional activation of prefrontal area 46, which is traditionally associated with motor planning and motor memory. It is believed that it organizes the process of combining elementary motor acts into complex action which a person is trying to imitate.

3. The mirror neuron system allows you to empathically simulate the mental state of another person and his sensations through observation, “mapping” the observed information to the motor areas of the observer’s brain, in fact, reproducing the same sensations.

4. The mirror neuron system allows you to simulate emotions, movements and sensations in different modalities: auditory, pain, olfactory, gustatory, as well as emotions.

An fMRI experiment (Morrison et al., 2004) demonstrated that experiencing a pinprick and watching another person receive the same pinprick activated the same pain areas in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC area 24b). ).

Jabbi et al. (2007) used fMRI to study empathic empathy for the emotion of disgust, the most important evolutionary emotion. Disgust has been studied in the context of unpleasant odors or tastes. Subjects observed facial expressions that were triggered by disgusting, neutral, or pleasant odors. Activity in the area of ​​the anterior insula and the adjacent frontal operculum (anterior insula, adjacent frontal operculum, hereinafter referred to as IFO) was assessed. Next, the authors correlated the subjects' level of self-reported empathy with activity in their IFO areas while observing facial expressions. A clear relationship was found between the degree of empathic empathy for both unpleasant and pleasant emotions and the degree of activity in the IFO area, responsible for processing taste and olfactory stimuli. The authors indicate that empathy affects not only negative but also positive feelings, and that the IFO area is involved in the formation of empathic feelings by mapping bodily sensations to the internal state of the body, which is consistent with the proposed introceptive function of the IFO.

If previous experiments described the connection between observation and activity of the SNS, then in the following they analyzed a similar connection for auditory signals. In a study by Gazzola et al. (2006), the authors first asked subjects to watch another person perform a certain action, then let the subjects listen to the sound of the same action. fMRI of the brain revealed that in both cases, the subjects experienced activation of the left temporal, parietal and premotor cortex, corresponding to the anatomical location of the SCN, which confirms the presence of an auditory mirror system. Moreover, a special somatotopic pattern of activity was observed in the premotor cortex: the dorsal part of the cortex was more active when performing and listening to the corresponding sounds of hand movements, the ventral part was more active when performing and listening to the corresponding sounds of mouth movements. This system was also activated upon observing these activities. People who were more empathetic had greater activity in this area of ​​the brain, indicating that empathy is linked to the functioning of the mirror neuron system.

There is a well-known experiment in which two groups of subjects were asked to listen to short piano melodies (Bangert et al., 2006). The first group included pianists, the second group included people who could not play the piano. Brain scans revealed that in pianists, compared to people who did not play the piano, the activity of the brainstem (Broca's area, Wernicke's area, premotor and other areas) and the corresponding auditory and motor areas was much higher. (Update as of May 28, 2017. It must be borne in mind that, according to modern concepts, the identification of Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas is probably outdated. More details: http://neuronovosti.ru/rozenkranzgildenstern_are_dead/). The researchers concluded that advanced playing skills in pianists were manifested in greater activation of the mirror neuron system, as well as the activation of specific neural networks, apparently characteristic of the musical brain.

5. The mirror neuron system is involved in recognizing intentions.

The experiment described by Blakemore & Decety (2001) is very illustrative. Two conditional situations were chosen for demonstration to the subjects: “before tea drinking” and “after tea drinking”. In each situation, three series of frames were shown (see Fig. 1).

Rice. 1. The top row of frames is the first situation, the bottom row is the second. On the left is the general context of the situation, in the middle is an isolated movement of the hand, on the right is the movement of the hand in the context of the situation with intention. Blakemore & Decety, 2001.

The first showed the general setting of the kitchen table, set for tea drinking (in the first situation) or with signs of the end of tea drinking (in the second situation) - the context of the situation.

The second series of shots shows the movement of a hand reaching for a cup standing alone on the table. These frames are designed to trigger in the observer the process of internal modeling of the act of grasping that will take place in such a situation, in order to filter out this activity during brain scanning later.

In the third series of frames, the same movement (a hand reaching for a cup) occurred in the context of a set table (i.e., the first two series of frames were “combined”). In the first situation, the hand reached for a full cup standing on a set table. In the second situation - behind an empty cup, standing among other dishes, on which food remains are visible. It is understood that in the first situation the person takes the cup with the intention of drinking tea, and in the second situation - to remove the dirty dishes from the table.

Rice. 2. Activity zones are marked with an arrow. Blakemore & Decety, 2001.

While viewing these frames, the subjects underwent a brain scan, after which, during information processing, components responsible for visual and motor processing were analyzed and filtered. As a result, the researchers detected activity in the area corresponding to the anatomical location of the SCN (see Fig. 2). The researchers suggested that this activity corresponded to awareness of the intention of the person whose hand the subjects observed: why the person took the cup - to drink tea or to clear the table.

6. The activity of the internal modeling process depends on the competence and experience of the observer.

Rice. 3. Color videos of classical ballet and capoeira movements performed by professional dancers. Twelve different movements for each style (a - ballet, b - capoeira). Calvo-Merino et al., 2005.

In an experiment by Calvo-Merino et al. (2005) two groups of dancers participated: some were professional ballet dancers, others danced capoeira. The subjects were shown two dance videos—ballet and capoeira (Figure 3)—during which they underwent an fMRI brain scan.

The results revealed that in professional dancers, the activity of brain regions corresponding to the mirror neuron system (premotor cortex, superior parietal cortex on the right, posterior superior parietal cortex on the left) was significantly more pronounced when they observed dance movements that they themselves mastered (Fig. 4-6).

Rice. 4. Calvo-Merino et al., 2005.

Rice. 5. Effect of experience on the neuronal response to movement observation after correction. Calvo-Merino et al., 2005.

Rice. 6. Calvo-Merino et al., 2005.

The researchers concluded that the brain's response to an observed action depends on the motor skills of the observer himself. Although the subjects saw the same videos, their brains responded most strongly to the movements that they could perform themselves. In addition, according to the researchers, the SZN encodes not just individual components of movements, but entire patterns and combinations, since the dance movements that the subjects observed had many common muscle elements and were, in principle, accessible to all subjects. However, these videos elicited a neural response that differed depending on the experience of the observer. In addition, it was once again demonstrated that the motor areas responsible for the preparation and execution of muscle movement were also activated when observing this movement. In other words, the mirror neuron system does not simply respond to the visual kinematics of movements, but transforms the observed movement into specific motor abilities of the observer. This finding supports simulation theory (Gallese & Goldman, 1998).

7. Empathic feeling depends on mental attitudes.

In an experiment by Lamm et al. (2007) authors examined the influence of mental attitudes on empathic empathy for the pain of others. As part of the pre-instruction, a group of subjects were told that they would see videos showing a new method of treating patients with a certain neurological disease. The method involves patients listening to special very loud and unpleasant sounds that cause pain. Because the method is new, some of these patients have benefited from it and some have not. Subjects were asked to observe the patients' faces, which showed an expression of pain while the patients were listening to sounds. There were two pairs of factors in the experiment: first, subjects were told about the success (or failure) of treatment for the patient they saw on video; secondly, while watching the video, the subjects were asked to either imagine themselves in the patient’s place, or imagine from the position of an observer how the patient feels this pain. During the experiment, fMRI scans of the subjects' brains were carried out, as well as other measurements, including questionnaires on pain levels, emotions and empathic empathy. The authors assessed areas of brain activity, the level of personal discomfort of the subjects and the level of their empathic empathy.

The scans revealed an extensive neural network that was activated in subjects when observing patients' facial expressions and reflected sensory, cognitive and emotional processing (Figure 6).

Rice. 6. Hemodynamic response when observing pain. Lamm et al., 2007.

It was found that the subjective attitude of the subjects significantly influenced their level of empathic empathy and personal discomfort. The greatest empathy, altruistic motivation to help and the least discomfort were associated, firstly, with knowledge of the success of treatment, and secondly, with the subjective “observer position” - when the subjects were asked not to imagine themselves in the patient’s place, but to imagine what the patients themselves felt . Accordingly, when subjects tried to put themselves in the patients' shoes (Fig. 7), and also when they were told about the ineffectiveness of such painful treatment in a particular case (Fig. 8), when observing grimaces of pain, the subjects showed the greatest personal discomfort and the least empathic empathy . Moreover, in the brain there was activation of centers responsible for fear, the motivation of flight and self-defense, for example, the amygdala nucleus (Fig. 9).

Rice. 7. Areas of the brain that are active when putting yourself in the patient’s shoes. Lamm et al., 2007.

Rice. 8. Brain areas active when imagining treatment failure. Lamm et al., 2007.

Rice. 9. Activity of the amygdala when imagining oneself in the patient’s place. Lamm et al., 2007.

In other words, it has been demonstrated that the level of his own discomfort, empathy, and most importantly, motivation depends on how a person relates to the observed emotions of another person.

8. Empathy and the work of the SZN are the basis of hypnotherapy rapport.

The mirror neuron system combines neural networks responsible for imitation, modeling mental states (movements, emotions, sensations, etc.), recognizing intentions and speech. Empathy, as opposed to logical analysis, is the brain's way of recreating the emotional state of the interlocutor by mapping relevant sensory data to the corresponding parts of the brain. Modern hypnosis can be defined as a state of consciousness combined with the dynamics of sensory perception, occurring within the framework of a specific therapeutic relationship. Ericksonian hypnosis is, in essence, a special way of interacting between people, and the therapeutic relationship is a wrapper for the emotional and cognitive elements of this process.

Milton Erickson developed and successfully implemented many techniques that are metaphorically consistent with the neurophysiology of the mirror neuron system. These techniques, primarily adjustment (harmonization), are used by all Ericksonian therapists (Antonelli et al., 2010; Rossi & Rossi, 2006).

literature:

• Antonelli, C., Luchetti, M. Mirror neurons and empathy: proposal of a novel paradigm for hypnosis. Contemporary Hypnosis 2010; 27(1):19-26.
• Banert, M., Peschel, T., Schlaug, G., Rotte, M., Drescher, D., Hinrichs, H., Heinze, H. J., Altenmüller, E. Shared networks for auditory and motor processing in professional pianists: Evidence from fMRI conjunction. NeuroImage 2006; 30: 917–926.
• Blakemore, S. J., Decety, J. From the perception of action to the understanding of intention. Nature, August 2001; 2:561–567.
• Calvo-Merino, B., Glaser, D. E., Passingham, R. E., Haggard, P. Action Observation and Acquired Motor Skills: An fMRI Study with Expert Dancers. Cerebral Cortex 2005, 15, 8: 1243 – 1249.
• Falck-Ytter, T., Gredeback, G., von Hofsten, C. Infants predict other people’s action goals. Nature Neuroscience 2006; 9, 7: 878–879.
• Gallese, G., Goldman, A. Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind-reading. Trends Cogn Sci 1998; 2:493–501.
• Gazzola, V., Aziz-Zadeh, L., Keysers, C. Empathy and somatotopic auditory mirror system in humans. Current Biology 2006; 16: 1824–1829.
• Jabbi, M., Swart, M., Keysers, K. Empathy for positive and negative emotions in the gustatory cortex. NeuroImage 2007; 34: 1744–1753.
• Lamm, C., Batson, C. D., Decety, J. The neural substrate of human empathy: effects of perspective-taking and cognitive appraisal. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 2007; 19(1): 42–58.
• Morrison, I., Lloyd, D., di Pellegrino, G., Roberts, N. Vicarious responses to pain in the anterior cingulate cortex: Is empathy a multisensory issue? Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 2004; 4 (2): 270–278.
• Rossi, E. L., Rossi, K. L. The neuroscience of observing consciousness and mirror neurons in therapeutic hypnosis. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 2006; 48: 263–278.

Vladimir Snigur

Psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, simultaneous interpreter, member International Society Hypnosis (ISH), member of the Association of Clinical Hypnosis Specialists (ASoKG). He studied hypnosis from Professor M.R. Ginzburg, Jeffrey Zeig (PhD) and other European and American specialists. An expert in the field of nonverbal communication, worked with specialists from Paul Ekman International. Participant of international conferences and seminars on psychotherapy. Holder of a black belt in Aikido Aikikai.
Telephone:+7 926 042 42 23
Mail: [email protected]
Website: VladimirSnigur.ru
Hypnosis training:

Business owners and heads large corporations Europe is actively spending budgets on themselves and their teams, ordering lectures and training from neuroscientists. Scientific approach to emotions, as has recently been believed, increases sales, influences the results of negotiations and makes business more humane.

Neuroscientists have been able to prove to business that it is more profitable to learn to manage emotions than to ignore them. People are tired, they are running away from office stress. If you are a manager who regularly “clears the minds” of your top managers and keeps the entire large office in fear, you are living in the past, losing productive people, and with them, your profit. To achieve peak performance, your employees must be at the peak of their capabilities. At the same time, you can push them out of their zone of maximum productivity if you do not pay attention to how you interact with them.

They first started talking about mirror neurons in 1992 - they were discovered and described by the Italian scientist Giacomo Rizzolatti (now he heads the Institute of Neurology at the University of Parma and is an honorary doctor of St. Petersburg State University). These are brain cells that are excited and generate impulses when we monitor the actions of other people - and, like a mirror, they automatically “reflect” someone else’s behavior in our minds, allowing us to experience what is happening as if we ourselves were performing these actions.

At a minimum, mirror neurons allow us to understand the truth about partners and subordinates and predict their actions (mirror neurons are the neurophysiological basis of empathy).

Is it important to you what a potential investor thinks about the upcoming contract? Is he committed to serious investments or is he playing a double game? He may be a great verbal actor, but if you master the technique of mirroring emotions and analyzing them, you will get the right answer to your question. You can call it the power of intuition, the inner voice - but from the point of view of neuroscience it is the theory of mirror neurons. To be more specific: when a person frowns, he uses 17 facial muscles, when he smiles - 46. The conceptual mechanism is designed so that first the emotion of another person is reflected on our face, and then gives an impulse to the brain, our “motor dictionary” deciphers this impulse and turns on an appropriate (not rational, but emotional - this is an important point) response reflex - and all this happens in 0.08 seconds. Are you being offered a controlling stake? Logically, you should be excited, but if your mirror neurons considered another reality, you do not feel elation, but irritation, withdrawal, a desire to hide or leave the meeting. You felt the falseness - you mirrored it.

It would seem that everything is primitive and easy. But not really. In order to truly mirror a difficult interlocutor (I have never met anyone else in big business), it makes no sense to technically copy his gestures - it will not give anything. You will need to put yourself in a resourceful state and turn on empathy. Advanced businessmen have been developing this skill for years. What advice should you give to beginners? At a minimum, try to focus as much attention as possible on your partner’s face during negotiations. Often the managers I advise complain that their faces are not mirrored. And my first question to men in this case: “How often do you practice Botox injections?” For a man whose facial muscles are “frozen” by injections, it is much more difficult to use the mirroring technique.

It’s easier with women - they naturally have more mirror neurons than men, they can “speak with their eyes.” It is not surprising that every year corporations are increasingly offering women positions as CEOs and board members. Empathy, increased sensitivity, readiness to build a dialogue, listen - this is what the business of the future is built on.

Mirror neurons, translated into business language, are brain cells that influence the “human factor”. And the human factor has a direct impact on sales.

In 2016, scientists conducted a study that found that when a waiter has an angry, dissatisfied face, his customers order less - people mirror, they literally lose their appetite, and restaurateurs lose money. We're back where we started: to get the deal of the year, your developer needs to be at the top of their game. If you are an authoritarian tyrant, the team “mirrors” you, this increases stress for each employee and business efficiency decreases.

This is possible through willpower. But today you will no longer be able to run a successful business with a cold face, because competitors are breathing in your back, and they have learned to create an emotional connection with the client (we call this “emotional contagion” - and, fortunately, emotions of joy are “more contagious” than sadness). What is your advantage then? What can we say if even for devices with artificial intelligence, programs are being developed that allow for emotionally charged communication between technology and humans.

Mirror neurons, by the way, open up great prospects in medicine. This year we published the results of a study on how sensitive, empathic techniques of a doctor working with a patient greatly influence the result. It is possible to make a diagnosis much more accurately, and the well-being of not only the patient, but also the doctor himself improves.

It is mirror neurons that provide the “crowd effect”, the popularity of a certain artist, and even success in social networks. Experts call this a “mirror virus.” The “lift look” trend on Instagram, when at some point even the most serious people could not resist taking a selfie in the elevator, is a very accurate example.

It is impossible to stop the “viral” spread; it either disappears on its own or is replaced by another virus. Advanced companies take this fact into account and launch “viruses” themselves. They spend colossal budgets on neuromarketing.

Most often, a hint—the smell or sound of some action—is enough for us to activate the mirror neurons responsible for this action. American scientist Alan Hirsch, for example, separately studies the phenomenon of the influence of odors on sales. He developed a lot of aromatic compositions for different types business. For example, the Honest Car Salesman essence is often used in car dealerships. And at the request of a Chicago plastic materials plant, Alan created an essence with the smell of freshly ironed linen fabric, which is used to soak garbage bags.

You are walking through the park and see a frisbee flying into the face of a random passer-by. Automatically you sympathize with him. If you watch a race and cheer for a particular runner, your heart begins to beat faster, especially when he is close to the finish line. Watching a woman try an unfamiliar food and wrinkle her nose can make you feel an uneasy feeling in your stomach.

Over the years, these body reactions have raised questions among psychologists, neuroscientists and philosophers. How does a person manage to react so quickly instinctively to the thoughts, feelings and intentions of other people?

At the moment, most scientists are confident that, from a neuroscientific point of view, this phenomenon can be explained by the work of mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are a type of brain cell that responds equally to both the situation when we ourselves perform an action and to observing another person performing the action. These neurons were first discovered in the early 1990s by Italian scientists who found them in the brains of monkeys. The same neuronal firing in monkeys was observed when they themselves picked up an object and when they observed other primates taking the same object. It is worth noting that single neurons were observed in the brain of monkeys, the presence of which in the human brain has not yet been established.

Neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti from the University of Parma, who discovered these neurons, reports that their presence explains how and why we can “read” the thoughts of other people and experience empathy for them. Continuing the study, scientists came to the conclusion that mirror neurons can also explain phenomena such as autism and the evolution of language.

However, research into mirror neurons in the human brain is still in its early days. So far, scientists have not been able to find single neurons in humans (unlike monkeys), but only more common system mirror neurons. The problem is that to determine the activity of single neurons in a person, you need to connect electrodes directly to the brain. IN last years All studies of mirror neurons are carried out using MRI.

In a word, although scientists have established the presence of a mirror system in the human brain, it is not yet possible to prove the existence of single mirror neurons.

All mirror neuron studies have looked at humans and monkeys performing certain actions. This is because the motor area of ​​the brain is the most studied and understood. It is in this area that it is easier for scientists to track the presence of certain types of neurons.

However, this approach was insufficient, since it did not answer the most interesting questions, for example, about how people perceive the emotions and feelings of other people.

Bruno Wicker and colleagues used fMRI to study the emotion of disgust. A study published in the journal Neuron in 2003 involved 14 adult men. Brain activity was measured in two situations: in the first case, participants were asked to smell butyric acid (which smells like rotten oil), and in the second case, they were asked to watch a video of a man wincing his face, expressing dislike and disgust. Scientists have found that both one's own experience and viewing the experience of another person activates a certain segment of the olfactory field in the anterior insula of the brain. Similar mirror reactions were observed in studies of brain activity during tactile contact.

Other scientists have wondered whether mirror neurons might respond not only to other people's emotions and actions, but also provide insight into the intent behind those actions.

“You can pick up the cup with the intention of taking a sip or remove it from the table. The question is whether mirror neurons can tell the difference,” says Marco Iacoboni, author of a study on mirror neurons published in the journal PLOS Biology.

In his experiment, a team of scientists used fMRI to study 23 participants who watched videos of a person picking up a cup. In the first video, a person took it from a set table, on which there were various treats for the party. This situation was supposed to hint to the participant that, most likely, the person in the video wants to drink tea. In the second video, the table was littered with candy wrappers and dirty plates, which informed the participant that the party was over and the hero of the video wanted to clear the table. In the third video, the cup was standing on an empty table. Scientists were able to establish that mirror neurons in the premotor cortex responded more strongly to actions in the context of a party than to actions outside of any context. This means that mirror neurons are important not only for understanding the actual action, but also for understanding a person's intentions.

Mirror neurons are key to understanding how humans have managed to survive and thrive in a complex social world. The mechanism of these neurons is involuntary and automatic. This means that a person does not need to think about what other people are doing or feeling, he simply knows it.

With a high degree of probability, a person is “programmed” to see other people as similar to himself, and not different from himself. Basically, we perceive the people we meet, their feelings, intentions and actions, just as we perceive our own emotions and sensations.

Original article: Lea Winerman, - The mind’s mirror, Monitor on Psychology. American Psychological Association, October, 2005.

Editor: Simonov Vyacheslav Mikhailovich

Keywords: mirror neurons, neuroscience, psychology, research