Brain Science Podcast #39: Michael Arbib on Mirror Neurons

Episode 39 of the Brain Science Podcast is an interview with Dr. Michael Arbib from the University of Southern California. Dr. Arbib’s work with functional brain imaging has established the presence of mirror neurons in the human brain. In our interview we focused on the role of mirror neurons in imitation and language. In particular I questioned Dr. Arbib about the Mirror System Hypothesis (MSH) of Language Evolution that he proposed in 1998 with Giacomo Rizzolatti. We also explored how this hypothesis diverges from the universal grammar proposed by Noam Chomsky. Dr. Arbib also shared his enthusiasm for future research and we talked about the special challenges caused by the interdisciplinary nature of modern neuroscience.

Listen to the Interview

Related Episodes:

• Brain Science Podcast #7: A discussion of bonobos with Stuart Shanker, PhD
• Brain Science Podcast #30: a discussion of language evolution including my thoughts on Chomsky
• Brain Science Podcast #35: a detailed discussion of Mirrors in the Brain by Giacomo Rizzolatti

Scientists Mentioned in the Interview:

• Giacomo Rizzolatti: His team discovered mirror neurons at the University of Parma, Italy
• Other team members: Vittorio Gallese, Luciano Fadiga, and Leo Fogassi
• Ursula Bellugi (Salk Institute): pioneered the neurobiology of sign language
• Richard Byrne (University of St. Andrews): studies how gorillas learn in the wild
• Michael Tomasello (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Anthropology): studies social behavior of primates, including how communicative gestures vary between groups.
• Noam Chomsky (MIT): famous linguist who has proposed an inborn universal grammar
• DL Cheney and RM Seyfarth: research about primate vocal behavior, especially the use of calls in the wild.

References:

• Cybernetics, by Norbert Wiener- this classic inspired Dr. Arbib’s career in computational neuroscience.
• Action to Language via the Mirror Neuron System, (2006) edited by Michael Arbib.
• Mirrors in the Brain by Giacomo Rizzolatti and Corrado Sinigaglia, 2008. Discussed in Episode 37.
• Mirroring People by Marco Iacoboni, 2008. The author studies mirror neurons at UCLA.
• Rizzolatti G & Arbib MA Language within our grasp. Trends in Neuroscience 21(5): 188-194- the first paper describing the Mirror System Hypothesis, 1998.
• Iacoboni M, Molnar-Szakacs I, Gallese V, Buccino G, Mazziotta JC, et al. Grasping the intentions of others with one’s own mirror neuron system. PLoS Biol 3 (3): e79, 2005.
• Arbib, M.A., “From Monkey-like Action Recognition to Human Language: An Evolutionary Framework for Neurolinguistics” (with commentaries and author’s response), Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28:105-167. (Click here for supplemental commentaries and the author’s “electronic response.”) 2005.
• Arbib MA 2006 “Broca’s Area in System Perspective: Language in the Context of Action-Oriented Perception” in Broca’s Region, Oxford University Press, pp 153-168.
• Arbib MA 2008 “Invention and Community in the Emergence of Language: Insights from New Sign Languages,” in Foundations in Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience, Cambridge University Press.
• Click here for more papers by Dr. Arbib. He has also written over 40 books.

Other Links:

• Michael Arbib’s website

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Brain Science Podcast #37: Dr. John Medina discusses “Brain Rules”

John Medina, PhD

Episode 37 of the Brain Science Podcast is an interview with Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. We talk about how exercise, sleep, and stress effect our brains with an emphasis on practical advice for healthier brain function. We also look at how research on memory, vision and the brain’s attention system suggests how we can improve our ability to learn and our ability to share ideas with others.

Dr. Medina’s focus is on considering real world examples of how our schools and work environments could be reformed to utilize the growing knowledge of neuroscience. But he also stresses the importance of compiling sufficient experimental data before embarking on new programs.

Listen to Episode 37 now (left click to listen, right click to download mp3).

Links and References:

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School (Book & DVD) by John Medina

The book’s website contain extensive references and instructive videos.

YouTube Video of John Medina speaking at Google™.

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Brain Science Podcast #35: A Closer Look at Mirror Neurons

Brain Science Podcast #35 is a discussion of Mirrors in the brain: How our minds share actions, emotions, and experience by Giacomo Rizzolatti and Corrado Sinigaglia. Mirror neurons were discovered in Rizzolatti’s lab in Parma Italy in the early 1990′s and his book is a detailed to discussion of the experimental evidence in both monkeys and humans. Direct single neuron recordings have been made in monkeys. The evidence in humans is indirect since it is based on mainly on neuroimaging studies like PET scans and fMRI scans. Even so mirror neurons appear to be essential to our ability to understand both the actions and emotions of others. Listen Now.

In this episode we also explore the evidence that there are other neurons in the motor areas of the brain that have sensory properties and that the areas of the brain traditionally thought to be devoted to sensory functions also contain neurons with motor properties. Another fascinating discovery is the fact that there are neurons that respond not only to somatosensory inputs (such as being touched) but also to visual or auditory inputs from objects within our peri-personal space. For background on these body maps I recommend listening to Episode 21 and Episode 23. If you are new to the Brain Science Podcast you may want to listen to those episodes first because this week’s episode is a little more technical than most.

I will be exploring the importance of these discoveries in future episodes.

Listen to Brain Science Science Podcast Episode 35 (mirror neurons) NOW.

Links:

Giacomo Rizzolatti- University of Parma

Mirror neurons (wikipedia entry)

Mirror neurons (Scholarpedia entry written by Dr. Rizzolatti)

Listen to Brain Science Podcast #35 (mirror neurons) Now

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Brain Science Podcast #34: Rachel Herz talks about Smell

Rachel Herz

Episode 34 of the Brain Science Podcast is an interview with Rachel Herz author of The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic Sense of Smell (2007). Dr. Herz teaches at Brown University and she is a leading authority on the psychology of smell. We talk about the how smell works, its role in emotion and memory, why it is so vulnerable, and why smell is much more important than most of us realize. We also consider some of the questions that remain unanswered.

Listen to the Rachel Herz interview now. (Right click to download.)

Links and References:

Rachel Herz

• Brown Medical School faculty page
• Wikipedia: a good source for further references
• RachelHerz.com
• thescentofdesire.com

The 2004 Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology was awarded to Richard Axel and Linda B. Buck for their discoveries of “odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system.”

BuckL, Axel R “A novel multigene family may encode odorant receptors: a molecular basis for odor recognition.”
Cell. 1991 Apr 5;65(1):175-87.

“The (Shocked) Nose Knows” by Gisela Telis ScienceNOW Daily News 27 March 2008

The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic Sense of Smell (2007) by Rachel Herz

Listen to Episode 34 (Right click to download)

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Natasha Mitchell interviews Jonah Lehrer about “Proust was a Neuroscientist”

The February 9th episode of All in the Mind is an excellent interview of author Jonah Lehrer about his book Proust was a Neuroscientist. In the interview Lehrer reflects on the danger of viewing science as the sole source of discovery, but he also talks a little about several of the people explored in his book. His basic premise is that artists from various fields often intuitively grasped truths that are now being revealed by neuroscience. One example is the insights that Proust had about memory.

Proust was a Neuroscientist is a valuable contribution to the current exploration of the relevance of neuroscience to everyday life. It can be easily read in a few sittings or savored one artist at a time.

Natasha Mitchell is an excellent interviewer because she always asks interesting and probing questions. (I think of her as the Australian Terry Gross.). All in the Mind is an excellent compliment to the Brain Science Podcast.

Mitchell has recently begun an All in the Mind blog and there is a new All in the Mind group on Facebook.

Brain Science Podcast #30: The Evolution of Language

Episode 30 of the Brain Science Podcast is a discussion of The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language by Christine Kenneally. We focus mostly on the first part of the book, which tells the story of how the study of language evolution has grown from almost a banned subject to a new field of inquiry called evolutionary linguistics. We also reflect on how recent findings in neuroscience like the importance of plasticity are influencing the field.

Listen to Episode 30

Scientists Discussed in the Episode:

• Noam Chomsky
• Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
• Stuart Shanker
  • Brain Science Podcast #6: Discussion of The First Idea
  • Brain Science Podcast #7: Interview about bonobos
• Steven Jay Gould
• Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom
• Philip Leiberman

*References:

Pinker, Steven, and Paul Bloom, “Natural Language and Natural Selection,” Behavioral and Brains Sciences 13 (1990): 707-84.

Marc D. Hauser, Noam Chomsky, and W. Tecumseh Fitch (2002). “The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?” Science 298:1569-1579.

Christine Kenneally, The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language (2007).

Stanley I. Greenspan and Stuart G. Shanker, The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved from our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans (2004).

*Additional references can be found in Kenneally’s book and at the websites of the scientists listed above. Also, be sure to check out Kenneally’s blog for follow-up information.

Listen to this episode now.

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Brain Science Podcast #29: Interview with Dr. Maryanne Wolf

Dr. Maryanne Wolf, Director of The Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University

Brain Science Podcast #29 is an interview with cognitive neuroscientist, Dr. Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. I discussed her book in Episode 24, so this interview was an opportunity to ask her some follow-up questions, and to focus more on how children learn to read. Dr. Wolf shares her ten years of experience helping children learn to read and developing programs to help children with problems like dyslexia. She shares some practical advice for parents as well as her concerns about how reliance on the internet could influence reading skills.

I enjoyed the conversation and, while I especially want to share this episode with parents, I think Dr. Wolf gives everyone some interesting ideas to consider. Listen to the interview.

Links:

• Maryanne Wolf:
  • Faculty page at Tufts
  • Director of The Center for Reading and Language Development
  • Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain

• The Center for Reading and Language Development (Tufts University)
• RAVE-O: A Comprehensive, Fluency-Based Reading Intervention Program

Listen to this episode now.

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Brain Science Podcast #26: Author Norman Doidge, MD discusses Neuroplasticity

Listen to interview of Dr. Norman Doidge (episode 26)

Episode 26 of the Brain Science Podcast is an interview with Dr. Norman Doidge, MD, author of The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (2007). Dr. Doidge and I agree that neuroplasticity is the most important discovery about the brain that has been made in several hundred years. In his interview Dr. Doidge talks about some of the obstacles that delayed this discovery including what he calls the “plastic paradox,” which is the fact that plasticity itself can contribute to the development of rigid behaviors, including addictions and bad habits.

The Brain That Changes Itself includes the work of the key scientists of neuroplasticity. In my conversation with Dr. Doidge we talked about the work of Paul Bach-y-Rita, Edward Taub, and VS Ramachandran. Dr. Doidge also shared how his own work is being effected and why he thinks neuroplasticity has the potential to lead to more important discoveries.

Note: The Brain Science Podcast has moved to http://brainsciencepodcast.com.

Please Click here for the full show notes for Episode 26.

 

Brain Science Podcast #23: Interview with Sandra Blakeslee

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Show Notes

This episode is an interview with Sandra Blakeslee, co-author (with her son Matthew) of The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps Help You Do (almost) Everything Better, which we discussed in episode 21.

I asked Blakeslee to tell me a little bit of her background as a science writer. She wrote for the New York Times for many years and was the co-author of both Jeff Hawkins groundbreaking book, On Intelligence and VS Ramachandran‘s modern classic Phantoms in the Brain (1998), which was one of the first books to explore neuroplasticity.

In this interview we explored the relationship between body maps and neuroplasticity, as well as questions from listeners about out of body experiences and other oddities once considered “paranormal.” We talked about how body maps are relevant to understanding why some methods of alternative healing appear to be effective.

I asked her to tell me which scientist she met made the biggest impression. Here are a few of those she mentioned:

• Marco Iacoboni at UCLA
• Atsushi Iriki-cyberspace
• Olaf Blanke in Switzerland who has discovered how the angular gyrus is involved in out-of-body experiences
• Arthur “Bud” Craig who is the pioneer of mapping the insula
• Michael Merzenich-a pioneer in the field of neuroplasticity who also helped design the first cochlear implant

Blakeslee told me about some of the pioneering work that Merzenich is doing to apply his discoveries to help people, both those with disabilities and those who just want to combat aging. You can learn more about his work at http://www.positscience.com/.

If you would like to contact Sandra Blakeslee to give her feedback or ask her questions she has a contact form on her books website at http://www.thebodyhasamindofitsown.com/. She is going to let me know when she gets the references posted on the site.

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Click Below to Listen to Podcasts

 

• Interview of Sandra Blakeslee (episode 23)
• Discussion of her latest book (episode 21)
• Brief Review of On Intelligence (episode 2)

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Nature Relaunches its neuroscience podcast

I am happy to report that Nature has relaunched its neuroscience podcast under the new name NeuroPod. If you like the Nature podcast but would rather hear a show devoted to the latest Nature articles on neuroscience, you will want to check this out at http://www.nature.com/neurosci/neuropod.

If you prefer blogs, you might want to check out Action Potential (also from the editors of Nature). I am not very good at keeping my blogroll up-to-date, but another site worth checking out (suggested to me by Adam Rutherford at Nature) is Mind Hacks.

As always, remember that you can submit your favorite podcasts, blogs, and other neuro-related websites at the Brain Science Podcast Discussion Forum.