The Mirror Mechanism and Mu Rhythm in Social Development

摘要

Since the discovery of mirror neurons (MN) in the monkey there has been a renewed interest in motor theories of cognitive and social development in humans providing evidence for an action observation/execution matching system. It has been proposed that this system plays a fundamental role in the development of complex social and cognitive behaviors such as imitation and action recognition. In this review we discuss what is known about MNs from the work using single-cell recordings in the adult monkey, the evidence for the putative MN system in humans, and the extent to which research using electroencephalography (EEG) methods has contributed to our understanding of the development of these motor systems and their role in the social behaviors postulated by the MN hypothesis.