452 ChapTER 13 Emotion, Stress, and Health
- The cerebral cortex generates
a more complete picture; it
can override signals sent by the
amygdala (“It’s only Mike in
a down coat”).- The amygdala scrutinizes
information for its emotional
importance (“It’s a bear! Be
afraid! Run!”).
- The amygdala scrutinizes
If either the amygdala or critical areas of the
cortex are damaged, abnormalities occur in the
ability to experience fear or recognize it in others.
A patient known as S. M. has a rare disease that
destroyed her amygdala, and as a result she cannot
feel fear—not toward snakes, not when watch
ing scary movies, not even when she was being
attacked in a park by a man with a knife (Feinstein
et al., 2011). In a subsequent experiment, she did
feel panicky when inhaling carbon monoxide that
induced a feeling of suffocation, showing that
she can feel fear when the cues are internal; but
she does not experience fear when the causes are
external (Feinstein et al., 2013). People with dam
age in the cortex may also have difficulty turning
off their own fear responses, causing excessive and
chronic anxiety.Mirror, Mirror, in the Brain: Neurons for
Imitation and Empathy. LO 13.4, Some years ago,
a team of Italian neuroscientists accidentally made
an astonishing discovery. They had implanted wires
in the brains of macaque monkeys, in regions in
volved in planning and carrying out movement.
Every time a monkey moved and grasped an object,
the cells fired and the monitor registered the brain
activity. Then one day, a graduate student heard the
monitor go off when the monkey was simply ob
serving him eating an ice cream cone.
The neuroscientists looked more closely,
and found that certain neurons in the monkeys’
brains were firing not only when the monkeys
were picking up peanuts and eating them but
also when the monkeys were merely observ
ing their human caretakers doing exactly the
same thing. These neurons responded only to
specific actions: A neuron that fired when a
monkey grasped a peanut would also fire whenthe scientist grasped a peanut but not when
the scientist grasped something else (Rizzolatti
& Sinigaglia, 2010). The scientists called these
cells mirror neurons.
Human beings also have mirror neurons
that fire when we observe others doing some
thing and when we mimic the action ourselves.
The “mirror system,” containing millions of
neurons, helps us identify what others are feel
ing, understand other people’s intentions, and
imitate their actions and gestures (Iacoboni,
2008; Fogassi & Ferrari, 2007). When you see
another person in pain, one reason you feel a
jolt of empathy is that mirror neurons involved
in pain are firing. When you watch a spider
crawl up someone’s leg, one reason you have a
creepy sensation is that your mirror neurons
are firing—the same ones that would fire if the
spider were crawling up your own leg. And when
you see another person’s facial expression, your
own facial muscles will often subtly mimic it,
activating a similar emotional state (Dimberg,
Thunberg, & Elmehed, 2000).
The discovery of mirror neurons is exciting,
but some popular writers have exaggerated its
implications (Gallese et al., 2011). For exam
ple, these neurons seem strongly involved in
empathy, but empathy has social limits: Mirror
neurons go to sleep when people look at indi
viduals they dislike or are prejudiced against.
If you like a person, mimicking their facial
movements and gestures will increase that lik
ing, but if you dislike the person, trying to perk
up your mirror neurons by mimicking won’t
improve matters at all (Stel et al., 2010; van
Baaren et al., 2009).
Among people who do like each other or are
in the same social or ethnic group, mirror neurons
may be the mechanism responsible for mood conta-
gion, the spreading of an emotion from one person
to another. Have you ever been in a cheerful mood,
had lunch with a depressed friend, and come awaymirror neurons Brain
cells that fire when a
person or animal observes
another carrying out an
action; these neurons
appear to be involved in
empathy, imitation, and
reading emotions. Mirror neurons are surely at work in this conversation.