"The Cell that reads Minds"

Researchers observing neural firings in a monkeys brain while eating found something suprising, that the same areas of the monkey's brain fired when lifting and moving an object as when it saw a researching lifting and moving an object. It was discovered that "The monkey brain contains a special class of cells, called mirror neurons, that fire when the animal sees or hears an action and when the animal carries out the same action on its own."
This lead to the discovery that humans not only have the same mirror neurons, but ours are even more evolved than that of the monkeys, reflecting the higher degree of social complexity that we are at.
When you see someone do an action, the mirror neurons simulate the same action in your brain, you understand another's actions because you have the template for those actions in your brain. When you see someone else in pain, you feel a timgle of your own because of mirror neurons This explains the empathetic reaction people have to others pain and embarrassment.
Autism may be caused by broken mirror neurons, which would make you unable to feel in your self what is being experience by another person.
This article also points out that mirror neurons work best face-to-face, "virtual reality and videos are shadowy substitutes." This raises an interesting question for the future of human empathy as our interactions using these mediums become more and more commonplace. If human empathy is a result of neural firing, will we become more cold and less sympathetic if these neurons fail to fire because they do not recognize the actions we see virtually to be related to our own? For example, when I witness someone embarrassing himself in public, my mirror neurons make me feel the "cringe" I would if I myself was embarrassed. Because virtual representations do not activate mirror neurons in the same way, when I see someone embarrass themselves in video form, I may not feel the same "cringe." The decreasing face time of social interactions may mean negative consequences for human empathy.

Roxanne