Department of Evolutionary and Functional Biology, University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2011 Apr;1225(1):166-75. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06002.x.
Mirror neurons (MNs) were first discovered in monkeys and subsequently in humans and birds. While MNs are deemed to play a number of high-level cognitive functions, here we propose that they serve a unitary form of sensorimotor recognition of others' behavior. We caution that this basic function should not be confounded with the higher order functions that stem from the wider cortical systems in which MNs are embedded. Depending on the species, MNs function at different levels of motor event recognition, from motor goals to fine grained movements, thus contributing to social learning and imitative phenomena. Recent studies show that MNs coding has a prospective nature, suggesting that MNs also play a role in anticipating and predicting the behavior of others during social interactions. The presence of mirroring mechanisms in subcortical structures related to visceromotor reactions and the large diffusion of imitative phenomena among animals suggest that MN systems may be more ancient and widespread than previously thought.
镜像神经元（MNs）最初在猴子身上被发现，随后在人类和鸟类身上也有发现。虽然 MNs 被认为具有多种高级认知功能，但我们在这里提出，它们是对他人行为进行单一形式的感觉运动识别的基础。我们提醒注意，这种基本功能不应与源于 MN 所在的更广泛皮质系统的更高阶功能相混淆。根据物种的不同，MNs 在运动事件识别的不同层次上起作用，从运动目标到精细运动，从而有助于社会学习和模仿现象。最近的研究表明，MNs 编码具有前瞻性，这表明 MNs 在社会互动中也在预测和预测他人的行为方面发挥作用。与内脏运动反应相关的皮质下结构中镜像机制的存在以及动物中模仿现象的广泛传播表明，MN 系统可能比以前认为的更为古老和广泛。
