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Mirror neurons: Enigma of the metaphysical modular brain - PubMed

Mirror neurons: Enigma of the metaphysical modular brain

Sourya Acharya et al. J Nat Sci Biol Med. 2012 Jul.

Abstract

Mirror neurons are one of the most important discoveries in the last decade of neuroscience. These are a variety of visuospatial neurons which indicate fundamentally about human social interaction. Essentially, mirror neurons respond to actions that we observe in others. The interesting part is that mirror neurons fire in the same way when we actually recreate that action ourselves. Apart from imitation, they are responsible for myriad of other sophisticated human behavior and thought processes. Defects in the mirror neuron system are being linked to disorders like autism. This review is a brief introduction to the neurons that shaped our civilization.

Keywords: Autism; neurons; visuospatial.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1

The mirror neuron system in the human brain. (1) SMA: Supplementary motor area, (2) PSSC: Primary somato sensory cortex, (3) IPC: Inferior parietal cortex, (4) VPMA: Ventral premortal area, neurons having mirror properties, BA: Broca's area, WA: Wernicke's area, FG: Fusiform Gyrus, AG: Angular gyrus, PMC: Primary motor cortex

Figure 2
Figure 2

Understanding of “what” and “why” actions through mirror neuron system

Figure 3
Figure 3

The selective activation of different neurons in different goal oriented tasks

Figure 4
Figure 4

The mirror neurons of the anterior insula fires at a basic emotional theme, irrespective of different modality of portrayal

Figure 5
Figure 5

Demonstrates the role of mirror neurons in sound mediated visual abstract reasoning

Figure 6
Figure 6

A, auditory cortex (Hearing); B, Broca's area (speech and syntax); W, Wernicke's area (semantics); AG, angular gyrus (cross-modal abstraction); H, hand area; IT, inferior temporal cortex (Fusiform area); F, face area. 1, Bouba–Kiki effect; 2, arcuate fasciculus for cross domain mapping between sound contours and motor maps; 3, cortical motor to motor mapping (synkinesia)

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