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Article: WE FEEL YOUR PAIN. . . . . . AND YOUR HAPPINESS, TOO THE HUMAN BRAIN'S SOURCE OF EMPATHY MAY ALSO PLAY A ROLE IN AUTISM
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- December 12, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2005 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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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 ...