In the 1990s, researchers identified a brain cell they dubbed a "mirror neuron." First observed in macaque monkeys, these neurons reside in the motor cortex yet respond equally to executing a movement and observing someone else execute a similar movement. Hailed as the basis for understanding the actions of others, these neurons soon appeared in scientific studies of everything from language to autism. A profound shift in our understanding of the human mind was underway--or so we thought. In The Myth of Mirror Neurons, neuroscientist Gregory Hickok asks: What if the foundational claim is wrong? Focusing on the first key experiments, Hickok uncovers a pair of tenuous and codependent assumptions that smoothed over anomalies and obscured important evidence. He then draws on recent studies to question the conventional understanding of mirror neuron activity and offer a new direction for future research into the brain's deepest mysteries: language, communication, and cognition.
The Myth of Mirror Neurons: The Real Neuroscience of Communication and Cognition
