In Monkeys
The first animal in which researchers have studied mirror neurons individually is the macaque monkey. In these monkeys, mirror neurons are found in the inferior frontal gyrus (region F5) and the inferior parietal lobule.
Mirror neurons are believed to mediate the understanding of other animals' behaviour. For example, a mirror neuron which fires when the monkey rips a piece of paper would also fire when the monkey sees a person rip paper, or hears paper ripping (without visual cues). These properties have led researchers to believe that mirror neurons encode abstract concepts of actions like 'ripping paper', whether the action is performed by the monkey or another animal.
The function of mirror neurons in macaques remains unknown. Adult macaques do not seem to learn by imitation. Recent experiments by Ferrari and colleagues suggest that infant macaqes can imitate a human's face movements, though only as neonates and during a limited temporal window. Even if it has not yet been empirically demonstrated, it has been proposed that mirror neurons underlie this behaviour and other imitative phenomena. Indeed, there is limited understanding of the degree to which monkeys show imitative behaviour.
In adult monkeys, mirror neurons may enable the monkey to understand what another monkey is doing, or to recognise the other monkey's action.
Read more about this topic: Mirror Neuron
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