Process Archive / Studio Bhoan

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field notes & fragments from an itinerant studio
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Copycat Neuroplasticity, as it's called, gives us a much more acute understanding of how the brain works, but it doesn't bring us a great deal closer to the ghost in the machine: consciousness. Many scientists believe the sensory map imprinted on the brain forms a rudimentary consciousness, and the next stage of development is "mirror neurons", which enable us to ape the actions of others.

These neurons were first discovered in monkeys in the 1990s and last year they were formally identified in humans. Ramachandran, the mirror therapist, was quick to reflect on their potential and he predicts that their discovery "will do for psychology what DNA did for biology".

What they appear to tell us is that humans are first and foremost mimics. We make ourselves up as we go along by improvising from what we see. This model also suggests the self is in dynamic interaction with otherness, both copying behaviour and projecting its emotions on to others, which is the basis for the vital human quality of empathy. (Ramachandran speculated in 2000 that autism was caused by deficient mirror neurons and medical research is now going in this direction.)

*via The Guardian :  VS Ramachandran: The Marco Polo of neuroscience, 2011

Category
Research, Mirror Neurons, Empathy
all images © the artist Studio Bhoan  2025