A mirror neuron is a neuron which fires both when an animal performs an action and when the animal observes the same action performed by another (especially conspecific) animal.
Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of another animal, as though the observer were itself performing the action.
These neurons have been observed in primates, including humans, and in some birds.
In humans, they have been found in Broca's area and the inferior parietal cortex of the brain.
Some scientists consider mirror neurons one of the most important findings of neuroscience in the last decade.
For more information about the topic Mirror neuron, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:
Sensory neuron Sensory neurons are nerve cells within the nervous system responsible for converting external stimuli from the organism's environment into internal ... >
read more
Mirror test The mirror test is a measure of self-awareness developed by Gordon Gallup Jr in 1970. The test gauges self-awareness by determining whether an animal ... >
read more
Cognitive neuroscience The field of cognitive neuroscience concerns the scientific study of the neural mechanisms underlying cognition and is a branch of neuroscience. ... >
read more
Motor neuron In vertebrates, motor neurons (also called motoneurons) are efferent neurons that originate in the spinal cord and synapse with muscle fibers to ... >
read more
Note: This page refers to an article that is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the article Mirror neuron at Wikipedia.org. See the Wikipedia copyright page for more details. Editor's Note: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Recommend this page on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:
Other bookmarking and sharing tools: