May 2 – Marco Iacoboni: Mirroring people: Neural mechanisms to connect with others

In the macaque brain, there are premotor cells that fire not only when the monkey performs goal-oriented actions, but also when the monkey see somebody else performing those actions. These cells, called mirror neurons, may provide an immediate, automatic access to the mental states associated with the actions of other people. A neural system with similar properties (the human mirror neuron system, or hMNS) has been also discovered in the human brain. Activity in the hMNS is correlated with empathy in healthy volunteers and reduced hMNS activity correlates with the social impairment of patients with autism. Taken together, these data suggest that the hMNS is a bio-marker of sociality. The evolutionary process has shaped neurobiological systems that make us predisposed to social behavior and that in principle could even account for a secular morality.