Mirror Neurons And The Embodied Basis Of Empathy

Through systematically reviewing some related theories of empathy of human, the author has drawn a conclusion that researches concerning empathy could have various angles and perspectives. Recent years, theories concerning empathy of human have mushroomed, which have broadened and deepened our understandings of empathy. Meantime, there still have been five principal issues that exist in the field of empathy, that isⅠDoes real empathy conclude self-projection to others?ⅡWhether real empathy necessarily comprises identical emotional experience with others in intensity and frequency, or just only a cognitive analysis;ⅢWhether real empathy is an imagery simulation, or an explicit activity simulation;ⅣWhether real empathy is determined by gene or by social relationship;ⅤThe relationship of empathy and self.Having been found in primate's and human's brain, the mirror neuron is a sensory-motor neuron that fires both when an animal performs an action and when it observes the same action performed by another individual. The mirror neuron has been considered as the neural basis of empathy of human. By thoroughly tracing and analyzing experimental evidence of the relationship between the empathy and the mirror neuron, the author strives to provide a logical path through neurophysiology. Thanks to the tendency towards the second generation of cognitive psychology: embodied cognitive psychology, researches of mirror neurons should get the crucial status in the right field.The future study focusing on the relationship between human's empathy and the mirror neurons should abide by the principle of parallel studies of primate animals and human. Researches of primate animals should focus on single–cell recording and molecular level research, in order to get more understandings of the mechanism of the activities of cortical and subcortical neurons. Researches of human should choose corresponding neurophysiological instruments according to the subject. Apart from electroencephalograph(EEG), Magnetoencephalograph(MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI), transcranial magnetic stimulation(TMS) should get more attentions, so that causal conclusion could be drawn from the experimental design. Last but not least, by contrasting different levels of experimental results of human and primate animals, we can get more apprehensive understandings of the mirror neurons of human brain.