How are our mirror neurons involved in empathy?

While empathy is commonly known as the trait of being able to put yourself in another person’s shoes and understand their thoughts and emotions, there is actually complete scientific reasoning behind how one is able to instinctively feel what another person is feeling. Similar to when your friend cried and you began tearing up, or when a person yawned and you found yourself yawning too, the explanations to these phenomena of habits of imitation can be found in our brains, within specific cells known as mirror neurons.

Mirror neurons are a type of neuron that activates and responds similarly either when doing something or watching someone else do the same thing. In the early 1990s, Italian researchers discovered the concept of mirror neurons using macaque monkeys. They observed that when picking up an object or simply watching another monkey pick up an object, the same neurons in the brains of the monkeys activated. According to current knowledge, mirror neurons can be found in the motor cortex of the brain. Compared to animals, the mirror neuron system in humans is more general and scientists have not been able to single out individual mirror neurons, unlike animals. However, the fact that monkeys were able to have the same response when performing an action and watching another primate perform the same action suggests that the same type of reaction would also be apparent in humans.

So how does this apply to feelings of empathy? With the concept explained above, the surface reasoning behind empathy is in fact quite straightforward. The reason why we are able to empathize with others is that the mirror neuron system is able to convert external information into neural activity in our own brains, and in doing so we are able to physically feel what another person is feeling.

Hence, when you empathize with another person’s emotions, the part of your brain that experiences those same emotions is activated.

By Abigail Ho

Bibliography:

MacGillivray, L. (2009). I Feel Your Pain: Mirror Neurons and Empathy. Retrieved 21 February 2022, from https://mdprogram.mcmaster.ca/docs/default-source/MUMJ-Library/v6_16-20.pdf

Winerman, L. (2005). The mind's mirror. Retrieved 21 February 2022, from https://www.apa.org/monitor/oct05/mirror#:~:text=Mirror%20neurons%20are%20a%20type,else%20perform%20the%20same%20action.&text=Researchers%20haven%27t%20yet%20been,a%20more%20general%20mirror%20system