First direct recording of mirror neurons in human brain

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The first direct recordings have been made of mirror neurons in the human brain: nerve cells that are active during performing an activity but also during watching others perform an activity.
This may underlie empathy.
It may also be related to Autism.

Here's two science news articles about it:
New Scientist - Empathic mirror neurons found in humans at last
ScienceDaily - First direct recording made of mirror neurons in human brain

on to curing AS

God forbid! However it may be good to know if a child has Asperger's Syndrome. It could help a parent in coping with the upbringing of the child. The progress of civilization depends critically on Aspies able to do useful work the rest of the world can use.

ruveyn

You are cool. You always come up with interesting stuff. Thank you.

ruveyn

Thank you

lets just f***ing finish AS, finish mediocrity, finish underpaid or even worse, unemployed "aspies". God please let us all've normal kids and into better lives by choosing better genes and letting AS genes die.

That would mean the end of genius and original science and mathematics. Who do you think causes physical science to progress? Aspies like Newton, Einstein, Dirac etc.

ruveyn

Don't become narcissistic; the human mind is exponentially more complicated than that. A person could become "Aspie" if they wanted too, as could a person with a IQ of 90 win the Noble after decades of work. Theres this quote by Albert Ellis that escapes me. . .

Nonsense. By the way the presence of Aspies in the front rank of original science is too frequent to be a mere coincidence. Scientific and mathematical creativity is as rare as and of the same order as artistic or literary genius. Without the Aspies science would progress much more slowly, if at all.

ruveyn

Bulls*ht, you're assuming the only intelligent people are the ones with AS, nonsense.

I agree with ruveyn. It is good to have aspies in this world. It is good to have different kinds of people in this world, each with their strengths and talents.

you just dont get it.

I don't think my Asperger's is the source of my intuitive grasp of physics, as that is clearly a product of my synesthesia combined with my "self" sense being positioned in my right hemisphere, the cognitive self is dominant, using the linguistive self in the same way a normal person identifies their self being in the left hemisphere, and use the cognitive self for calculation/etc.

Is it possible Asperger's is related to being right brained? Maybe, but the variance in math skill/ability and the presence of clearly left brained type talents in many with Asperger's suggests otherwise.


We are not "the next step" in human evolution, we possess a specific deficiency which actually hinders reproductive activity, that is not a trait which would be selected for.

So why are there so many homosexuals? -- Okay that's a cheapshot. Both my parents have some degree of AS, not what you would consider diagnosable but still quite a bit. They both came from poverty and became millionaires, that probably lead to there reproductive success.

Much as I would love to believe this, my hyper-logic rationality kicks in and says it is just speculation, really In science, elsewhere, the ability to get along and empathise with people is a vital key to success. The fact that the same handful of exceptions are continually mentioned, just goes to show how exceptional they are.

I recently read a very interesting book called "Outliers" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book) . The gist being that succesful people do not get there purely based on innate genius and ability. That external circumstances and support of others are vital. The example of succesful scientist Oppenheimer (NT) and hyper intelligent but barely succesful Christopher Langan is particularly poignant. Lack of emotional intelligence, social skills provides a HUGE disadvantage and counter-reaction to ones raw intelligence. Popularity provides a huge advantage that can counteract the logical flaws. Which is why human's are so often conned by charmers selling lies and rubbish.

Scientists have egos too - in many famous cases, they have even bigger egos than average! They say that it takes a generation for new ideas to take hold - because the old school cling to their ideas. Rationality and logic do not come into it. It's a mistake to think that science is a competition where the finest, most logical, objective minds win out. Scientists want to be popular, to achieve high social status, attract the best mates, same as everyone else (they just have a different strategy of achieving it) And so do Aspies....

You only have to spend half an hour here to see that being Aspie is NOT an indicator of rational, objective thinking. Stubborn clinging to personal, subjective ideas as universal truths seems as high here than in NT world. Possibly higher. Which does not make for good science.
Science can only find what it looks for. And who's paying for it? Government and big business, mostly. Now that Mirror Neurons have been observed, thay could use the knowledge to stop NT's all blindly following each other on the latest witchhunt, emotional plague, couldn't they? Or they could use it to cure those who are not following the crowd. I am not optimistic about which way it will go.

As it's taken several years of hard looking to find them, I wonder what else is out there that we could find if we bothered to look so hard? <EDIT> Has anybody looked to see if mirror neurons fire in response to the actions of another species?

<EXTRA EDIT> So if mirror neurons have only just been detected in human beings, how come the second article has a link to another article "Why Autistic Children Do Not Imitate Or Empathize: It Could Be A Dysfunctional Mirror-Neuron System", dated May 4 2007??? How on earth could they detect a "dysfunctional mirror-neuron system" 3 years before the 'proof' of the mirror neuron system was observed?. Just proves how much of even so-called 'science' is just layer upon layer of theory and speculation masquerading as truth.

And my totally irrational opinion is that the conscience free, establishment funded science of the past few is going to end civilisation sooner than it will fix it. Haven't some scientists shown that civilisations rise and fall in cycles and we are on the downward slope right now?