Autism & Neuroscience: Mirror Neurons

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A little while back I heard about how deficiencies in mirror neurons account for ASD's apparent difficulty in empathy. Although Wikipedia is far from authorative, take a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy#cite_note-63. (Footnote 64)

If it is true (and I remain somewhat tentative) then this could be neuroscience's equivalent to cold fusion; a radical claim that turned out to be unreproducible by other scientists.

Neuroscience has so much potential; it can finally solve mysteries that psychologists & psychaiatrists have only offered speculation on. However, scientists in the field need to make a concerted effort to apply "baloney detection" to claims made by peers, and call out on mistakes or downright lies.

For those unfamiliar with Carl Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit", Michael Shermer provides an excellent summary in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUB4j0n2UDU

One thing that NTs and ASDs need to master is critical thinking and the scientific method. It is a better way of detecting falsehoods than nonverbal cues.

When said mirror neurons will be defined better and a few hundred aspies wil be put under some sort of brain scan like fMRI to see there is some anomly in them which causes any trouble well then this will have any credit the obvious problem is that the number of theories about autism is so large and seamlessly merges with "alternative medicine" bs we won't fund any direction soon ... only more kids abused by parents who go for random "snake oil" therapies.

That's the hard part: yes, understanding how minor differences in the epigenesis can lead to such massive differences in adult competency helps... understand. It's just that it doesn't help.

Normals aren't ever going to know from the inside how it feels not to make the grade, though. For them, if you don't fit you're out of it, and - just as we don't have any way of knowing what its like on the inside - they can't help

For every single aspie who can stand up in the spotlight and say "Yes. I'm different - and it helps" there must be a thousand like me who are stuck with "Yes, I'm different - and it sucks"

Totally trying to speculate a memory here, but I think I read once that people with Autism are also more likely to have less symmetrical facial features than NTs. Just a blank guess. But, people respond to such differences as well as social behaviors.

Mirror neurons have been given substantial attention in several recent books a variety of topics in psychiatry and neurology, from ASDs to sociopathy. But as said above, the definitive tests have yet to be done, so just because a monkey show mirror neuron activity when watching another monkey eat, or fMRIs of sociopaths show different mirror neuron activity from normals proves little.

First, correlation is not causation. Perhaps some underlying genetic, epigenetic, of phathophysiological phenomenon results in both AS and deficient mirror neuron activity, if said deficiency is shown to exist.

Second, human interpersonal interaction, and thus empathy, likely rely on more than mirror neurons, since there are plenty of blind NTs out there whose mirror neurons presumably are not doing much.

I find neurology and neuroscience fascinating, and look forward to the research that will be done 10 to 20 years from now.

No - that's incorrect, and the converse is true!
(Not to be too particular, but ASD individuals are often termed 'angelic' looking (ie: Leo Kanner, et al, & more) - subjective, but plenty of pretty Autists).

Anyway, about mirror neurons - is curious then read Giacomo Rizzolatti. Dr. Rizzolatti revolutionized autistic lack of Theory of Mind with his brilliant research, quantifying mirror neurons. For those who do not know, Lab Pet is in neurosciences (1stly chemist). Rizzolatti is the ultimate (and a wonderful gentleman as well).
Mirror Neuron research is illustrating the HOW the Autistic mind works - just too much to post here but that's good news and Neuroscience is evolving.

But careful - mirror neurons are NOT related to visual sight (misnomer entirely). Further, absolutely NOT correlated, at all, to those who are sociopaths! In fact, the opposite. Think: In order to be manipulative, one must have a 'knowing' or way of seeing how others see. Meaning, 'emphathy' has a dark side too. There is an Autistic Innocence :: lack of ToM >> mirror neurons that are truly like a mirror instead of glass.

"mindblindness" as conferred by mirror neurons that do not work Neurotypically is not related to visual sight at all.

Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen wrote a good book Theory of Mind where he elucidates about mirror neurons.

Remember, 'deficiency' is a value-judgment. In the sciences we simply do not regard mirror neuron discrepency as 'deficient' or any other adjective. Mirror neuron research IS revolutionary since it's quantifiable. I selectively stain neural receptors w/ respect to various neurotransmitters.

Dont know about that, but it has been proven that Autism spectrum brains are slightly larger than an NTs.

It's not the facial features but the facial expressions that are asymmetrical. I have a tendancy to only smile with the right half of my mouth, comes of like a sneer or uncomitted half smile with the result. The right eyebrow raises on it's own a bit too. These have resulted in slightly lop sided features simply because I've done them so much. I can control it without much effort if i try but have only just realised it's happening.

Dead wrong. Look up Mirror Neurons. Lab Pet is a neuroscientist. Mirror neurons imply Theory of Mind, or lack thereof. Mirror neurons give ability to 'see' what others may opine; behavioral.

Knock it with the psuedo-science guessing crap NONSENSE

Ok, if you want to actually know a teensy bit of what you're trying to say.......

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/10/science/10mirr.html

^ little brief on Mirror Neurons - aka, 'monkey see monkey do.'