Mirror Cells And Empathy

Mirror cells light up the same way you do something and when you watch someone else do it. The fact that your brain has the same reaction to both situations explains learning through imitation, imitation, and even empathy. This is because you experience another person’s actions as yours, and it helps you understand them.

When mirror cells were first found, it happened in an experiment involving animals, especially monkeys. The study identified them for the first time in macaques and localized them to a premotor cortex that specializes in design, selection, and execution of movements.

Since this study of monkeys, many different studies have been done on humans, with the aim of finding out if we also have mirror cells, and if they are related to learning, imitation, and empathy.

Putting yourself in another person’s shoes

People can recognize other people’s gestures and recognize their feelings just by looking at their faces. Even if we don’t know the person, that doesn’t stop us from guessing how they feel, and most of the time we’re right.

So when you see someone being busy, or someone falling to the ground, you may feel their fear or pain as if it were yours. This transfer takes place completely internally. Then we can ask: what mechanisms of the brain make this possible? Everything refers to mirror cells and their connections to other parts of the brain.

Mirror cells are also related to how we interpret other people’s actions.  Not only do they help us internalize and repeat the action we just saw, but they can also help us understand these actions and comprehend them with reason. They may make it easier for us to understand why others are behaving the way they do and to know if they need our help.

When these specialized cells are activated, other areas of the brain are also activated, such as the limbic system. We can recognize facial expressions by opening our memories and returning to the things we have learned and combining all this information to understand the situation and give it purpose.

Emotions catch on

People are very vulnerable to the effects. Even so much that other people’s feelings affect us and change our own feelings. When a coworker is sad and their faces reflect sadness, we are not only unable to understand that something is wrong, but it also affects our mood. Empathy not only allows us to understand what the other person is feeling, it also puts us in their shoes.

It has also been proven that a forced smile can make you feel better. Try it: one day when you feel sad, laugh. This simple way to pretend joy will make you feel better. It is also helped by friends who joke incessantly. Even if you’ve had a horrible day, their laughter is sure to catch on.

Just as other people’s feelings can be contagious and can have an effect on you, other people’s actions can have that kind of effect, especially in childhood. So exposure to violence through television can increase their violent behavior, as we tend to imitate what we see (even though we are not robots and we have the power to choose our own actions).

Find out other people’s intentions

We have imitated others since we were young. First we imitated our mothers ’gestures, then we pretended to be doctors, chefs, cops, etc. In our teens, we had idols and people we wanted to emulate, and as adults we imitate people who are successful.

Throughout our lives, we have imitated others and put ourselves in other people’s shoes. We’ve even pretended to be people we’re not really. This is why the film and theater industry exists; they come from our need to imitate and live in another reality.

Unlike monkeys, who also have mirror cells that activate when they see another monkey doing something, we have the ability to interpret whether someone is pretending, knowing or guessing their intentions. Perhaps this is one of the traits that sets us apart from other species. We are able to name another person’s actions and make hypotheses.

Mirror cells can be activated by hearing, watching, doing, or thinking about action, but not all of these triggers have the same effect. For example, we recognize a situation better when we see it than when we hear it. In fact, people work primarily through visual knowledge, even though our other senses are just as important.

Impact on our daily lives

The name of these cells says a lot about who we are. The name suggests that they activate when we see someone doing something. When this happens, it allows our brains to reflect the same pattern of activation as the person doing that activity. In other words, for the brain, it’s like doing the same thing another person does. They behave like mirrors.

We have a surprising, inner ability to recognize small gestures that are hard to pretend. This is a good tool to use when you want to know what the other person is feeling and how to treat him or her. It is a highly adaptive ability that helps us to interact and avoid problems.

This phenomenon was discovered some time ago, and an attempt is currently being made to study how this may affect certain behaviors and diseases. For example, it has been found that in people with autism, the activity of these cells is low . So by being able to study them, we have the opportunity to shed light on the understanding of autism and it can make it possible to find treatments that help the symptoms and the ability of those people to adapt.