Mirror Neurons By Nova Science

Autism is characterized as a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects social interactions, nonverbal and verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior. On a global scale, autism was estimated to affect 21.7 million people in 2013, and the number continues to rise as time persists. Children are often diagnosed while they are infants, usually in the first two years of life, when parents notice odd behaviors such as assembling toys or stacking of objects. It is not yet well understood how autism occurs, but we do know that autism affects information processing in the brain by changing the way nerve cells and their synapses connect and organize. Autism is one of the three disorders that make up the Autism Spectrum, the second is

Scientists started to "explore the concept that regions in our brain once thought to activate only our own activity or sensations are also firing what are known as mirror neurons, when we witness someone else perform

With the rate of autism being diagnosed on the rise, the amount of research and interest in the disorder has risen as well. Some research suggests that over the past two decades the occurrence of autism has increased from approximately 2-5 per 10,000 births to about 1-5 per 1,000 births (Acosta & Pearl, 2004; Fatemi et al., 2012). Still others report that the occurrence is as high as 1 in 150 kids (Amaral, Schumann, & Nordhal, 2008). Even though the spectrum of autistic disorders has been studied since 1943, there have still not been any consistent nor persuasive causes or markers, either biological or clinical, identified with autism and its range of disorders (Santangelo & Tsatsanis, 2005). In fact, even with all of the advancements in genetic research technology and the increasing interest in autism, researchers can still only account for approximately 5-15% of autistic cases (Rogers et al., 2013).

Mirror neurons are important because it can allow a child to develop a symbiotic relationship with their caregiver and it teaches them social interactions with other humans. People learn through seeing and practicing what they seen another person do. The child learns social cues and interactions from their caregiver and a bond is formed between them. From the infant stage, a child often mimics the expressions of certain moods such as smiling if they see their mother smiling. However, if a child does not engage in this imitation or develop that relationship with their caregiver, it will be more difficult for it to develop in the future. In some cases, it is possible that it may never develop. This means that the person will have a difficult time forming emotional attachments to other people, especially their caregiver. When developing a treatment plan for Robert, Dr. Perry had recommended medication, but Mama P refused to “drug up” her baby. Mama P insisted that Robert needed “people to be loving and kind to him.” Mama P held and rocked Robert whenever he had an emotional episode and it soothed him. Originally, Dr. Perry thought that this type of care infantilized him, but it was the type of care that Robert never received before. Robert never received loving or comforting when he was stressed, so the actual physical act of nurturing was able to calm him. It was apparent to Dr. Perry that this type of care was effective to abused or neglected children when Mama P treated

Autism continues to spark countless discussions and debates throughout the medical field. Some doctors believe that autism is a neurological disorder that can and should be treated, as others continue to think it is simply a difference in human adaption that needs to be nurtured and acknowledged. Regardless of what autism may be, it continues to dramatically rise in the number of children and families affected. With autism being based on such a broad spectrum, the affects and causes leaves the medical world searching for answers in unending stacks of research.

Life as a human is full of mystery and discovery. Throughout history, people have set out to learn more about the world and the people inhabiting it. In the process, they gained knowledge about a disorder that is now referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), or simply Autism. ASD is a developmental disorder that results in difficulty in social interactions, communication, and repetitive behaviors. Researchers have come a long way in gathering knowledge about the complex disorder since it was first discovered. Many of its aspects have been discovered and redefined to shape the disorder that is diagnosed and studied today. However, much like many other well-known psychological disorders, autism has yet to be fully understood; instead,

is one of the most vocal critics of the significance of Mirror neurons, as he doubts that action understanding could lead to activation of mirror neurons while in fact suspects the reverse happens. This also undermines the theory of broken mirror which is built upon the statement that action understanding and in turn social cognition have a basis in mirror neurons [13]. Another study that refutes the claim is the study of "perception of biological motion in autistic individuals" dealing with imitation that is discussed in the hypothesis [14]. Speaking about imitation, a direct contradiction of the hypothesis shows how children with autism were good at performing tasks involving automatic imitation. The study also questions if the sole function of the mirror neuron system can be about imitation as suggested by the broken mirror theory [15]. Mu suppression studies are also not in favor of the hypothesis stating that the visual attention between control and autistic groups were not significantly different [16]. Recently, Hamilton, A. et al., started with observing functional MRI studies that showed certain changes in the mirror neurons regions in the autistic subjects focusing on sequential action predictions but in conclusion, the hypothesis does not hold good enough to stand alone. They suggest combining studying mentalizing and mirror neuron studies to get a better sense of the phenomena

I often hear the phrase, “humans learn through observing and imitating,” and after reading about mirror neurons, it makes sense. As babies, we learn our first words by imitating the sounds our parents make. Growing up, we observe our environments; we learn what is acceptable and what is not. In turn, what we learn about our society allows us to conform and have a sense of belongingness to our community—we start to socialize. Socialization then translates to empathy. We discover feelings and we start to relate to other people’s conditions and situations enabling us to facilitate connections and develop relationships. Of course, more research is needed to validate the correlation of these mirror neurons to learning, language, social behaviors

The mirror neuron system is akin to most other structures and systems in the brain in that an incredible amount of knowledge is gained through study of the lesioned or dysfunctional system, such as the function or operation of the mirror neuron system to ideas for future research and intervention (Iacoboni & Dapretto,

In addition individuals with autism show deficits in understanding the emotional states of others which is seen in how they imitate and perceive facial expressions. Dapretto et al, (2006) studied MNS by investigating neural-activity during the imitation and observation of emotional facial expressions in high-functioning autistic children and found activity in the anterior component of the MNS was greater in controls then children with ASD. They found that typically developing children rely on right hemisphere mirror neuron mechanisms which is linked to the limbic system where meaning of the observed emotion is understood. Dapretto and colleagues suggested that since individuals with ASD displayed a dysfunction in their MNS they have to use alternate

and the Brain by John J. Ratey, M.D and Eric Hagerman. This paper focuses on a

The results of these experiments showed that most people would have some kind of brain activity before they even had the desire of which hand to use. Based on these experiments, the experiment indicated that the brain is commanding us, and that we are only carrying out the command of the brain.

Autism can be a mysterious topic, with a black box of information scientists have been trying to open for years. But today, people know a lot more about the inner workings of ASD. Some interesting facts and statistics are that the most obvious signs of autism occur at a very young age, usually 2-3 years old, and 1 in every 68 children have been diagnosed with it (What is autism?). The cause of this disorder is found in the brain, where their mind map is scrambled. This means that there are abnormalities in the cerebellum, brain stem, limbic system, and frontal cortex (Albano). In addition, the word autism comes from the greek word ‘autos’, which means ‘self.’ This is due to the fact that autistic people seem “self absorbed” (Autism Spectrum

Gamma is the frequency range around 30–100 Hz. This frequency denotes combining of different populations of neurons together into a network to carry out certain cognitive or motor function. Mu ranges 8–13 Hz., and partly extend over with other frequencies. This leads to the synchronous firing of motor neurons in rest state. Mu extinction reflects motor mirror neuron systems, because when an action is noted, the pattern differs, because of the standard neuron system and the mirror neuron system and interfere with each

Lateral inhibition is the capacity of neurons to enhance visual edges by inhibiting stimulation from receptors to spread action potentials that creates a contrast in stimulation and allows increased sensory perception. In lateral inhibition, neighboring visual neurons give weaker responses when they are activated at the same time compared with the time when they are activated alone creating Mach Bands. These bands are forms of optical illusions that create an exaggerated contrast between the edges of slightly different shades of grey. This helps ups distinguish one shade from the other making it easier for us to point out one color from the