Mirror Neurons: Definition, Function, & Examples​

Mirror Neurons: Definition, Function, & Examples​

Mirror neurons activate in our brains when we watch other people do something—kind of like our brains are imagining us doing the very same thing ourselves.​

*This page may include affiliate links; that means we earn from qualifying purchases of products.

Growing up, there were few things I found more uncomfortable than watching characters in movies and on TV shows be humiliated by others. I felt my body physically recoil and shrink away from the screen, often as the character onscreen went through some pretty similar motions. The crestfallen or hurt expression on the character’s face seemed to activate something similar inside me. It wasn’t much of a stretch; I was bullied occasionally throughout my childhood, and those experiences left a mark.​

When I first learned about mirror neurons, they immediately reminded me of that part of my life. The concept of mirror neurons also brought to mind many other experiences, such as how I sometimes cry when my clients do, how my upper body fills with tension when I watch two people fight with each other, or how, when I watch another guitarist play, I can feel in my fingers what they are doing. These responses may be attributed, in part, to mirror neurons. Let’s see how these neurons work and what it means for us as human beings.​

What Are Mirror Neurons? (A Definition)​

Why Are Mirror Neurons Important?​

It seems that mirror neurons are not limited to humans. (In fact, they were discovered in monkeys—more on that in a moment.) The fact that mirror neurons appear to exist across numerous different species, and appear to be present in many different areas of the brain, suggests that they serve some very important function for our survival and well-being (Bonini et al., 2022).
 
It has been proposed that the function of this is to allow us to understand the experiences and feelings of others in our species (Van Overwalle & Baetens, 2009). By internally having the same experience as another person, we get to both understand how that experience works and learn whether it is a good experience to have or not. This may be one primary reason mirror neurons are important: They help us understand if something is risky or dangerous (Porges, 2007). In other words, mirror neurons may be a factor in observational learning; when we see someone do something that hurts themselves, it often leaves a painful impression on us too.

What Is the Function of Mirror Neurons?

Let’s look a little deeper at this function of mirror neurons. Scientists think that in watching others perform an action, we try to map it onto our own bodies without actually engaging in the action—that’s where mirror neurons come in (Rizzolatti et al., 2001). If as a child you watched your older sibling touch a hot stove and recoil from it, it was probably better for you to realize that their action was painful through imitating it in your mind rather than trying it out yourself. Simply by seeing your sibling take the action and then leap away in pain, you learned that touching a hot stove—performing the same action—should be associated with a painful response.
 
This process also prepares us to imitate other people, even in ways that have no clear function (Rizzolatti, 2005). In this way, we may be different from monkeys, in whom mirror neurons were originally discovered. The mirror neurons in monkeys seem to activate when they witness another monkey engage in a goal-directed action such as picking up a piece of fruit to eat it. Humans have mirror neurons that activate in a more complex way, such that we understand not just why somebody is doing something but how they are doing it (Rizzolatti, 2005).
 
I think this is a meaningful difference. For example, when I started learning to rock climb, I would notice how more experienced climbers shifted their bodies in ways I did not know how to and for reasons that were not immediately clear to me. I was picking up, in a bodily way, on behaviors whose purpose I did not immediately need to know; I simply noticed behaviors and imagined myself doing the same thing on the wall. Later, I learned that these shifts in position were helping the climbers prepare for their next move, gain more balance, or decrease the strain on their arms.  
 
Biologists and social scientists have long known that learning through observation is an essential part of learning for many species. Mirror neurons may help explain how we understand what another person is thinking when they do things (Iacoboni, 2009). They support this learning by converting our sensory experience—what we see and hear others do—into a felt understanding of what it would be like to do those things ourselves. Then we can combine that information with the cues we get about the person’s feelings and thoughts, and, all of a sudden, we are experiencing the other person’s behavior alongside them.
  
Our mirror neurons are highly adaptive and get tons of input over the years (Cook et al., 2014). Think about how you might automatically squirm or feel uncomfortable when you watch somebody get injured in a movie or eat something disgusting on a reality TV show. Why should you have this reaction? You are physically unharmed, sitting there on your couch. But if you have no reaction to their experience, you might not learn to avoid that same situation yourself—and you might not come to their aid if it were a real-life situation.

When Are Mirror Neurons Activated?

It turns out that mirror neurons are activated not just by sight but also by sound. In one study, participants heard sounds such as the tearing of a piece of paper and the breaking open of peanut shells, but they could not see the action taking place. Nonetheless, their mirror neurons for the body parts involved in such actions showed reactions (Kohler et al., 2002).
 
Mirror neurons for parts of our motor system may also fire when similar actions, or actions with related goals, occur. For example, in the original mirror neuron study, some neurons that activated when the monkey held the food in a certain way or saw the researchers holding food in the same way also activated when the monkey watched the researcher carry the bowl of food into the room (di Pellegrino et al., 1992).

Examples of Mirror Neuron Activation

In monkeys, mirror neurons are primarily responsive to hand and mouth actions (Gallese et al., 1996). When monkeys see another monkey chewing or sucking on a food item, or grasping or manipulating food in some way, the motor neurons in their brains for those body parts light up. A similar pattern is observed for other mouth-related behaviors, such as sticking out one’s tongue or smacking one’s lips.
 
Remember broadly congruent mirror neurons, that large category of neurons that fire even if they do not match the exact motor neurons that would be used in the motion being witnessed? It is thought that these mirror neurons may fire to help us perform coordinated or complementary actions to what we are seeing (Newman-Norlund et al., 2007). For example, if I am swing dancing with a partner and she offers me her hand in a particular way, it would be helpful if the mirror neurons in my brain fired in a way that allowed me to take her hand, not just mirror her action.

Who Discovered Mirror Neurons?​

A team of researchers at the University of Parma in Italy discovered mirror neurons in the early 1990s. By accident, the researchers noticed that the brain imaging they were doing of monkeys showed similar activity when the monkey held a banana and when the monkey saw the researcher holding a banana (di Pellegrino et al., 1992). Several years later, these neurons were given the name “mirror neurons” because it seemed almost as if the monkey was observing himself behave in a mirror (Gallese et al., 1996).

The Role of Mirror Neurons in Empathy

The Role of Mirror Neurons in Observational Learning

Mirror neurons have been proposed as a mechanism through which we learn by observation (Rodriguez et al., 2014). Think about how many times you saw somebody else swimming or riding a bike before you tried it yourself. Through observation, your motor neurons had practiced activating in the ways that they would need to activate for you to successfully move through the water or stay on the bike seat and pedal forward.

Mirror Neurons and Emotions

As we learned in discussing mirror neurons and empathy, mirror neurons are present in our brains and activated when we witness the emotions of others (Corradini & Antonietti, 2013; Iacoboni, 2009). For example, one study found that the same pain receptors that activate in our brain when we experience something painful in our hand also activate when we watch the same experience happen to somebody else (Hutchison et al., 1999).

Mirror Neurons and Yawning

Yes, research suggests that yawning is in fact contagious. When people in a brain scanner watch other people yawn on a video screen, the parts of their brains associated with yawning activate (Haker et al., 2013). (I almost yawned myself just thinking about other people yawning.)​

Mirror Neurons and Language

Scientists also think that mirror neurons are an important factor in how we learn language, particularly because it is believed that language began as a gestural system, not as sounds that animals make (Corballis, 2010; Rizzolatti & Arbib, 1998). For example, studies have revealed that when we are trying to distinguish human speech against a background of other noises, there are neurons activating in our lips and tongue even though we are not speaking (Nuttall et al., 2016).

Mirror Neuron Disorders

Atypical activation of mirror neurons has been found in a couple psychiatric disorders, chiefly schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder (Ciaramidaro et al., 2015), in which the ability to understand what other people are thinking is often impaired. People with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and different forms of dementia may also experience breakdowns in their mirror neuron systems (Farina et al., 2020).

Articles Related to Mirror Neurons

Books Related to Mirror Neurons

Final Thoughts on Mirror Neurons​

The existence of mirror neurons in our brains is beyond dispute at this point, but scientists remain cautious about drawing firm conclusions regarding just how important they are for our functioning (Heyes & Catmur, 2022). For the vast majority of us who are not neuroscientists, I think mirror neurons represent another fascinating component of our incredibly complex and effective brains. How cool is it that we learn so much about the world simply from imagining what another person is doing—from putting our neurons through the same experiences they are having?
 
For another interesting take on mirror neurons, I recommend watching this video:

Video: Mirror Neurons: Causing Change Within Others​

References