After a long hiatus, I am attempting to get back into regular blogging. I'll start with a great post on The Frontal Cortex about mirror neurons and sports fans. Jonah Lehrer proposes an interesting explanation for why we find sports so damn personal. Read the entire post here.
The main functional characteristic of mirror neurons is that they
become active both when the monkey makes a particular action (for
example, when grasping an object or holding it) and when it observes
another individual making a similar action. In other words, these
peculiar cells mirror, on our inside, the outside world; they enable us
to internalize the actions of another. They collapse the distinction
between seeing and doing.
This suggests that when I watch Kobe glide to the basket for a dunk,
a few deluded cells in my premotor cortex are convinced that I, myself,
am touching the rim.
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