The "broken-mirror" theory of autism argues that dysfunction of the "mirror neuron system" is a root cause of social disability in autism. The present paper aims to scrutinize this theory and, when it breaks down, to provide an alternative. Current evidence suggests that children with autism are able to understand and emulate goal-directed actions, but may have specific impairments in automatic...

The discovery of the mirror neuron system by Rizzolatti and his colleagues began with a chance observation, but has since inspired 15 years of research into the properties, functions, and dysfunction of this system. Though much has been learned about this system of neurons, many questions still remain. What defines a mirror neuron? What is the extent of its involvement in social behaviors? How ...

It has been proposed that individuals with autism have difficulties understanding the goals and intentions of others because of a fundamental dysfunction in the mirror neuron system. Here, however, we show that individuals with autism exhibited not only normal fMRI responses in mirror system areas during observation and execution of hand movements but also exhibited typical movement-selective a...

This study investigated whether there are sex differences in the spinal excitability of the human mirror-neuron system. We measured the modulation of spinal excitability, elicited by Hoffmann reflex in the left plantar flexor muscle (soleus), when women and men participants observed videos of bipedal heel-stepping (plantar dorsiflexion), standing still, and bipedal toe-stepping (plantar flexion...

© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. James, W. (1890). Principles of psychology . New York: Holt. Jeannerod, M. (1994). The representing brain – neural correlates of motor intention and imagery. Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 17 , 187–202. Kilner, J.M., Friston, K.J., & Frith, C.D. (2007). The mirror-neuron system: a Bayesian perspective. NeuroReport , 18 (6...

The human mirror system has been the subject of much research over the past two decades, but little is known about the timecourse of mirror responses. In addition, it is unclear whether mirror and counter-mirror effects follow the same timecourse. We used single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation to investigate the timecourse of mirror and counter-mirror responses in the human brain. Exper...

The Mirror System Hypothesis (MSH) of the evolution of brain mechanisms supporting language distinguishes a monkey-like mirror neuron system from a chimpanzee-like mirror system that supports simple imitation and a human-like mirror system that supports complex imitation and language. This paper briefly reviews the seven evolutionary stages posited by MSH and then focuses on the early stages wh...

In this paper, we mathematically study a particular process for assimilation in the brain. The research aims to establish a theoretical model at computational level of the mechanism in a cognitive process operated by the mirror-neuron system, to generate a multi-dimensional system from this model, and to analyze the fundamentals of the related cognitive process in terms of dynamical systems. Fi...

Schizophrenia is often associated with difficulties in distinguishing between actions of self and of others. This could reflect dysfunction of the mirror neuron system which directly matches observed and executed actions. We studied 11 people with schizophrenia and their co-twins without manifest disease, using stimulus-induced changes in the magnetoencephalographic approximately 20 Hz rhythm a...