Guest guest Posted June 2, 2006 Report Share Posted June 2, 2006 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/ 3204/01-resup.html If you're skilled at a physical activity like ballet, the part of your brain that controls movement activates differently than the same part in the brain of someone who's not skilled in that activity. That's what researchers at the University of College London (UCL) have found in a fascinating new study. The study has implications for helping injured athletes continue to train without moving a muscle, and perhaps even helping stroke victims regain lost movement. In the UCL study, dancers from London's Royal Ballet and experts in capoeira, a Brazilian martial arts form, were asked to watch short videos of either ballet or capoeira dancers performing brief dance moves. While watching the videos, the dancers were lying perfectly still in an MRI scanner. A control group of non-dancers also participated in the study, which was published in the December 2004 online edition of Cerebral Cortex. The researchers found that areas of the brain collectively known as the " mirror neuron system " showed more activity when a dancer saw movements he had been trained perform than when he observed movements he hadn't been trained to perform. (All the dancers in the study were male.) The mirror system in the non-dancers showed appreciably less activity while watching the videos than either of the dancers' mirror systems, and the response it had was the same whether it was watching ballet or capoeira. Earlier studies with monkeys revealed that brain cells called mirror neurons respond both when we do something, like pick up an object, and when we simply watch someone else do it. It was known that these neurons fire when we perform an action, but it came as a surprise that the same cells also fired when we only saw that action being performed. The new study went a step further by showing that such a system operates differently depending on what you are physically expert at doing. " This is the first proof that your personal motor repertoire, the things that you yourself have learned to do, changes the way that your brain responds when you see movement, " says Daniel Glaser, a neuroscientist who was part of the UCL team. (Hear Glaser discuss the study's results shown in the graph at left.) " Our findings suggest that once the brain has learned a skill, it may simulate the skill without even moving, through simple observation, " says UCL's Patrick Haggard. " An injured dancer might be able to maintain his skill despite being temporarily unable to move, simply by watching others dance. " Similarly, by understanding how the mirror neuron system works, doctors may be able to better rehabilitate people whose motor skills were damaged by stroke. .... http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health _science/articles/2005/12/12/we_feel_you r\_pain_and_your_happiness_too/ Do you ever feel a twitch in your arm as you watch a baseball player wallop the ball? When others cry, do your eyes tear up as well? Do you tense as a TV surgeon slices into an incision? Those are your ''mirror neurons " at work. Just over a decade ago, Italian neuroscientists studying monkeys were amazed to discover that the brain has a system of neurons, or nerve cells, that specialize in a sort of ''walking in another's shoes " function. Some of the same neurons, they found, become active when a monkey actually makes a movement and when it is only watching another monkey, or even a human, make that same movement. It is as if the monkey is imitating -- or mirroring -- the other's movement in its mind. .... http://www.nyas.org/ebriefreps/main.asp ?intSubSectionID=3529 * Neuroscience can reveal much about the emotions that art inspires and about the universality of emotions. * When we view pictures depicting motion, we often feel a sense of physical empathy, as if we would like to move ourselves. The firing of " mirror neurons " may cause these " imitative feels. " * Mirror neurons may explain not only imitative feels but also the empathy that we experience when we view pictures of sad faces. .... http://www.fradical.com/Research_on_mir ror_neurons.htm urther investigation of mirror neurons promises " to do for neuroscience what DNA did for biology, " a brain researcher at the University of California-San Diego enthusiastically predicts. He expects they eventually will unlock explanations for " a host of mental abilities that have remained mysterious. " Already, says Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Research Center at Minnesota State University-Mankato, what's being discovered about mirror neurons suggests " profound implications about how police officers need to be trained. " The more an instructor can stimulate mirror neurons, the greater the chance that officers can readily pick up new skills. Also they will clue in more quickly to recognizing when those skills need to be used for their own protection. " .... http://www.youramazingbrain.org.uk/Brai nbody/dancers.htm http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow /3204/01-monkey.html http://www.ivarhagendoorn.com/research/ perception.html [ NNB ] Nisargadatta , " adithya_comming " <adithya_comming wrote: > > > > I used to avoid looking at the pictures of Adya... > > the reason was that when looking at him, > I felt myself 'transformed'. > > I felt as if 'I had become like him'... > > as if I had become 'the man in the picture'... > > > as if I had 'recognized' the " feelings " > 'visible' through this picture and now, > > I had the same " feeling " myself! > > ... > > Every time, I looked at him, I felt like > leaving the [feeling] state that existed > before looking at him... > > and entering an inherently familiar yet > distinctly different mold. > > It happened pretty much every time and due > to this reason, I guess I even resented him on > some level. > > > It was as if like a " nagging wife " , someone > was constantly reminding me of my > own truth, my own nature... my own Real Face! > > ... > > And, I developed an 'avoidance' fearing that > if I Iook, the 'transition' will happen again... > > I guess I had some inner 'inertia' built to > " remain " in the state I was in and not make > sudden 'uncontrolled', 'uninitiated' transition > into another state! > > > ... > > > Pete suggested that it had something to do > with mirror neurons. And, after reading a little > on mirror neurons, I am beginning to suspect that > perhaps, it is... > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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