Science

=Neuroscience=

Article by David Dobbs in **Scientific American Mind** April/May 2006 (This article is no longer available online) //"Human See, Human Do: A Revealing Reflection"//

When we see someone engaged in any activity cells called **mirror neurons** that are scattered throughout the brain create an instant replay in our heads. Investigators believe that these cells may be the keys to cultural development and may even be responsible for humanity's collective "great leap forward".

[|Into to above article by editor] //"It was one of those seemingly mundane moments, but I was thunderstruck when I realized the implications. Tossing on a cardigan, I happened to notice my toddler intently staring at me to figure out how to push a button through a hole in her sweater. Suddenly, I realized how much we learn how to do things and how to behave around others just by watching and copying"//

From memory this article gives an example - (poetic licence allows me replace the Oxford regatta to NT examples!!) if I am watching Judy Smith's dragon boat team go through their paces in Cullen Bay or the Henley on Todd dry race entrants the neural pathways firing in my brain will mirror the neural pathways in the rowers brains

Article by James Randerson in [|The Guardian Weekly] 14.03.08 (to access the digital version you need to create a members profile) //"Windows on our dreams: A new computer technique can tell what some one is looking at just by scanning their brain"//

This article outlines a breakthrough in using the latest developments in using fMRI (funtional magnetic resonance imaging) scanning equipment to observe brain activity. When someone views still images a computer was able to tell what the person was looking at. The computer decodes how the person codes visual infomation by tacking the brain activity - neural firing, blood flow etc.... Marcel Just, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittburgh says this is a //"major leap in undersatnding brain funtioning. They// [the scientist involved] //understand what the brain is saying"//