Week 4 Post 4 Mirror Neurons

My inspiration for today’s post came from one of my classmates, Vladimir. The topic of mirror neurons was fascinating and I decided to explore it further. Anyone who has taught someone how to do something can relate to watching closely while the task is completed, sometimes mirroring the motions physically but always mentally.

This article at Brainfacts.org makes the concept of mirror neurons even more identifiable. Flinching when someone else gets hurt, feeling empathetic disgust, feeling the thrill of victory when you watch someone win. The brainfacts article focuses on experiments with animals and this made me think of my own pack of furry friends and how much attention they lavish on us when we are eating. They stare, they drool, they wiggle and they beg.

They can barely contain themselves. Every bite seems to be coveted by them. You can see that the tan dog just wants the cake and leaves a puddle of drool because he just knows how delicious it is. The bigger black and white one uses something we refer to as the “jedi mind trick” wherein he tries to stare us into submission. The little one, despite being weighed down with that cone at the time, also expresses clearly how delicious she knows that cake is.

Diving deeper into the animal identification aspects of that article, many people believe our pets know when we are upset and try to comfort us. Could the theory of mirror neurons play into this as well?