Neurons in our brain 'mirror' the space near others, just as if
this was the space near ourselves, reveals a study from Karolinska
Institutet in Sweden. The study, published in the scientific journal Current Biology,
sheds new light on a question that has long preoccupied psychologists
and neuroscientists regarding the way in which the brain represents
other people and the events that happens to those people."We usually experience others as clearly separated from us,
occupying a very different portion of space," says Claudio Brozzoli,
lead author of the study at the Department of Neuroscience. "However,
what this study shows is that we perceive the space around other people
in the same way as we perceive the space around our own body." The new research revealed that visual events occurring near a person's
own hand and those occurring near another's hand are represented by the
same region of the frontal lobe (premotor cortex). In other words, the
brain can estimate what happens near another person's hand because the
neurons that are activated are the same as those that are active when
something happens close to our own hand. It is possible that this shared
representation of space could help individuals to interact more
efficiently -- when shaking hands, for instance. It might also help us
to understand intuitively when other people are at risk of getting hurt,
for example when we see a friend about to be hit by a ball.
Source: scientific journal Current Biology
Source: scientific journal Current Biology
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