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Have you ever ducked when a dangerous object was thrown at your friend?
What about grimacing when someone bites into a lemon or crying when a colleague sheds a tear?
According to Italian neuroscientists, those are your ''mirror neurons" at work.
Ten years ago, while studying monkeys the scientists were amazed to discover that the brain has a system of neurons, or nerve cells, that specialize in a sort of ''walking in another's shoes" function.
Some of the same neurons, they found, become active when a monkey actually makes a movement and when it is only watching another monkey, or even a human, make that same movement. It is as if the monkey is imitating -- or mirroring -- the other's movement in its mind.
Researchers are reporting in the January issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience that malfunctioning mirror neurons appear to play a central role in the social isolation of autistic children.
''We found that, lo and behold, the kids that had the most severe symptoms were the ones that had the least amount of activity" in certain mirror neurons, said Mirella Dapretto of the University of California at Los Angeles.
So is rapport our natural state? Interesting.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at
December 19, 2005 08:38 AM