Mirror neurons : still an open question ?

ions, actions, emotions, perceptions of our body and, in general, of anything that make us feel watchful. It also involves the subjective feeling of being present on the scene where events are occurring, and of being responsible for them in some way.Authors such as Damasio and Edelman have argued, albeit in slightly different ways, that there are different levels of consciousness. However, according to these Authors, these levels of consciousness would be overlapping, interdependent and non-parallel. According to them there would be a primitive level (the only one that can stand alone), along with a further two advanced levels, which are present only in humans. An injury on the first level would prevent the existence of the two successive levels, and, simi-Original article SUMMARY: To understand the mechanisms that shape consciousness and the evolutionary advantages itconfers, identification of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) is considered to be of fundamentalimportance. Hence, by reviewing neglect pathology, I set out to identify the brain areas whose damage causesthe loss of consciousness without preventing unconscious perception. Once these areas had been identified, byanalysis of the resulting neglect I sought to define a distinction between areas responsible for access toconsciousness and those responsible for consciousness itself. This approach led to the identification of theanterior cingulate and the precuneus-posterior cingulate as components of access to consciousness, while themedial-superior temporal lobe, the superior parietal lobe, the anterior insula, the posterior insula, the lateralmotor cortices BA 8 and BA 6, the inferior frontal lobe and the inferior parietal lobe appeared to correspondto 8 distinct and autonomous parallel real consciousnesses. Acting simultaneously, these areas give us 8contemporaneous conscious sensations, respectively, namely 1) image perception, 2) spatial image positioning,3) emotions related to these images, 4) presence on the scene, 5) possibility to move oneself in the scene, 6)possibility to move single objects, 7) possibility to move more than one object, and 8) feeling of being subjectspectator in the theatre of consciousness. The evolutionary advantages provided by the conscious process arethe ability to learn rapidly (without long training/trial and error) and a problem-solving approach mediated bymental images. All the 8 consciousnesses detailed above are thought only to be present in humans, developingas we climbed the evolutionary ladder, bringing new memory and reasoning skills, from the primitiveconsciousnesses that first appeared in reptiles. The neural correlates of these consciousnesses bear a strikinganatomical and physiological resemblance to mirror neurons. Like the mirror neurons, the NCCs are activewhen we perceive both external and mental images. The seductive hypothesis that mirror neurons are in factthe NCCs is therefore also discussed.