Mirror neurons and its impact on neurological diseases

Abstract

Mirror Neuron System (MNS) is a neural network composed by visuomotor neurons located in several brain areas whose most relevant characteristic is the capacity to integrate visual and motor information so that individuals experience observed situations as if they would be participating on them. This allows them to fully understand the action they are observing and also the intentions behind that given action. This sensorimotor integration happens in an automatic way that means that higher functions areas are not involved in the process. The discovery of this type of neurons is one of the most important events in Neuroscience in the last decades, giving a new way of understanding some processes in which mirror neurons could take part, from action understanding to emotion recognition or language and speech evolution. Knowing how it behaves and its main properties, MNS deficits have been hypothesized to be the cause of some of the core sypmtoms found in some disorders, more specifically behavioural conditions, and what is even more important this mechanism could become a treatment target to develop new therapies to approach these conditions.