Search
Related Links

 

 

Informative Articles

Acne: Common Illness May Be Increased By Usage of Antibiotics for Acne
According to experts, the usage of antibiotics for acne may increase common illness, what it was demonstrated by an experiment in which a group of individuals that was treated with antibiotics for acne for more than six weeks. After...

All-Natural, All-Inclusive Supplement , A Total Body Experience And Huge Business Opportunity
As health consciousness and consumer empowerment increase, dietary supplements can be a great opportunity for entrepreneurs. Consumers are beginning to take more responsibility for their own health care, and they are looking beyond the...

Keep Good Company
Do you have the courage to reach your goals? Do you have the courage to succeed? Do you have the courage to mix with the people who can change your life. Do you have the courage to walk away from those who keep you in your place? If you really want...

Seniors at a Disadvantage When Purchasing Prescription Drugs Online
A recent national survey done by the Kaiser Family Foundation in association with Princeton Survey Research Associates (PSRA) discovered that the digital world is still divided when it comes to seniors purchasing prescription drugs online. The...

Therapuetic Bath That Relieves Pain, Detoxify, and Relax Your Body
Over the past few months, I have been investigating, experimenting and using a new exciting substance that is relatively new to the US and Canada but has been tested, used, and supplied in Europe for centuries for all sorts of ailments and to...

 
We're natural mind readers

EMPATHY allows us to feel the emotions of others, to identify and understand their feelings and motives and see things from their perspective. How we generate empathy remains a subject of intense debate in cognitive science.

Some scientists now believe they may have finally discovered its root. We're all essentially mind readers, they say. The idea has been slow to gain acceptance, but evidence is mounting.

In 1996, three neuroscientists were probing the brain of a macaque monkey when they stumbled across a curious cluster of cells in the premotor cortex, an area of the brain responsible for planning movements.

The cells fired not only when the monkey performed an action, but also when it saw the same action performed by someone else. The cells responded the same way whether it reached out to grasp a peanut, or merely watched as another monkey or a human did.

Appropriately, the scientists named them "mirror neurons".

Later experiments confirmed the existence of mirror neurons in humans and revealed another surprise. In addition to mirroring actions, the cells reflected sensations and emotions.

"Mirror neurons suggest that we pretend to be in another person's mental shoes," says Marco lacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. "In fact, with mirror neurons we do not have to pretend, we practically are in another person's mind."

Mirror neurons may help cognitive scientists explain how children develop a theory of mind (ToM), which is a child's understanding that others have minds similar to their own.

Over the years, cognitive scientists have come up with a number of theories to


explain how ToM develops. The "theory theory" and "simulation theory" are currently two of the most popular.

Theory theory says children collect evidence -- in the form of gestures and expressions -- and use their everyday understanding of people to develop theories that explain and predict the mental state of people they come in contact with.

Simulation theory states that we place ourselves in another person's "mental shoes", and use our own mind as a model for theirs.

But the two theories are not mutually exclusive. If the mirror neuron system is defective or damaged, and our ability to empathise is lost, the observe-and-guess method of theory theory may be the only option left. Some scientists suspect this is what happens in autistic people, whose mental disorder prevents them from understanding the intentions and motives of others.

The idea is that the mirror neuron systems of autistic individuals are somehow deficient, and that the resulting "mind-blindness" prevents them from simulating the experiences of others. For them, experience is more observed than lived, and the emotional undercurrents that govern so much of our behaviour are inaccessible. They guess the mental states of others through explicit theorising, but the end result is a list of actions, gestures and expressions void of motive, intent, or emotion.

One recent experiment by Hugo Theoret and colleagues at the University of Montreal showed that mirror neurons normally active during the observation of hand movements in non-autistic individuals are silent in those who have autism.

About the Author

www.medical-explorer.com

 

National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health
Part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Library of Medicine offers access to health information for consumer, patient, and physicians ...
www.nlm.nih.gov
 
Health and Medical Information produced by doctors - MedicineNet.com
Doctor-produced health and medical information written for you to make informed decisions about your health concerns.
www.medicinenet.com
 
Medicine in the Yahoo! Directory
Collection of sites for health professionals, with sections on specific disciplines, organizations, continuing education, conferences, publications, ...
dir.yahoo.com
 
MedlinePlus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine
Health information from the National Library of Medicine. Easy access to Medline and Health topics, medical dictionaries, directories and publications.
medlineplus.gov
 
Medicine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Medicine is a branch of health science and the sector of public life ... The practice of medicine combines both science as the evidence base and art in the ...
en.wikipedia.org
 
Journal Home - Nature Medicine
Nature Medicine has a vacancy for a Locum Assistant Editor for six months. The position involves working in all aspects of the editorial process, ...
www.nature.com
 
The New England Journal of Medicine: Research & Review Articles on ...
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is a weekly general medical journal that publishes new medical research findings, review articles, and editorial ...
content.nejm.org
 
eMedicine Clinical Knowledge Base
eMedicine features up-to-date, searchable, peer-reviewed medical journals, online physician reference textbooks, and a full-text article database in 62 ...
www.emedicine.com
 
Open Directory - Health: Medicine
the entire directory, only in Health/Medicine. Top: Health: Medicine (11429). Description · Medical Specialties (4888); Surgery (2265) ...
dmoz.org
 
the www virtual library biosciences medicine
www.ohsu.edu/cliniweb/wwwvl/ - Similar pages
 
Medicine - home
Bimonthly journal covering the latest results in clinical investigation relevant to hospital and office practice.
www.md-journal.com
 
Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine serves as adviser to the nation to improve health.
www.iom.edu
 
ScienceDaily: Health & Medicine News
Medical Research News. Health news on everything from cancer to nutrition. Full-text, images, updated daily.
www.sciencedaily.com
 
Google Directory - Health > Medicine
Search only in Medicine Search the Web. Medicine. Health > Medicine, Go to Directory Home. Categories. Alternative Medicine (6308) Basic Sciences (66) ...
www.google.com
 
the world wide web virtual library biosciences medicine
www.mcb.harvard.edu/biopages/medicine.html - Similar pages
 
PLoS Medicine - A Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Journal
PLoS Medicine is a peer-reviewed, international, open-access journal published ... Every issue of PLoS Medicine contains a selection of readers' responses. ...
medicine.plosjournals.org
 
Medicine On-Line - Medicine Online -The International Medical Journal
Medicine Online - independent and peer reviewed journal published by Priory Medical Journals - priory.com.
www.priory.com
 
Entrez PubMed
PubMed is a service of the US National Library of Medicine that includes over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Stanford University School of Medicine
Home Page of the Stanford University School of Medicine.
med.stanford.edu
 
Medicine OnLine
Meds.com offers medical information and education on cancer (lung cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, leukemia) and HIV / AIDS for patients, ...
www.meds.com