Criticism Regarding The Role Of The Mirror Neuron System In Empathy Yet To Be Refuted

Bolding, Judith (2019) Criticism Regarding The Role Of The Mirror Neuron System In Empathy Yet To Be Refuted. Bachelor's Thesis, Biology.

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Abstract

The neuronal involvement in empathy is not well understood, although it has been studied from many perspectives. A share of cognitive neuroscience studies focused on a system of neurons with, so called, “mirror” properties. These neurons fire both when an action is performed and when that action is observed in another individual. This property allows you to understand the observed action and is proposed to underly our ability to empathize. A functional role of this mirror neuron system (MNS) in empathy received a lot of criticism over the years. Nevertheless, new investigations to prove this relationship keep popping up. In this paper I first introduce empathy and the MNS and explain the criticism that followed this mentioned theory. Four recent studies are highlighted and judged if they can refute the criticism. In conclusion, a causal link between the MNS and empathy is still not proved, but more support of this idea is delivered and new techniques for investigating the MNS are presented.

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor's Thesis)
Supervisor name:	Zee, E.A. van der
Degree programme:	Biology
Thesis type:	Bachelor's Thesis
Language:	English
Date Deposited:	05 Jul 2019
Last Modified:	08 Jul 2019 12:45
URI:	https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/19866

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