The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Mirror neuron deficiency may cause autism, says expert

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Monday, Jan 08, 2007
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Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Mirror neuron deficiency may cause autism, says expert

Special Correspondent

Persons with the disorder have poor self-awareness

V.S. Ramachandran, director, Center for Brain and Cognition and professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego (second from left), receiving the N. Soundararjan Lecture award from Dinesh Bughra, dean, Royal College of Psychiatrist s, U.K., in Chennai on Sunday.

CHENNAI: Research on persons with autism has shown that the most characteristic feature of the disability is lack of language and lack of social empathy, both of which may be caused by a deficit mirror neuron component, according to V.S. Ramachandran, Director, Center for Brain and Cognition and professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego.

The research was done to ascertain what specific aspect of brain damage created symptoms unique to autism. "Research has now been able to empirically demonstrate the linkage between consciousness and language, self and awareness of self, the dawn of culture and the birth of language, through mapping of mirror neurons in the human brain.

Mirror neurons allow imitation learning in that they do a computation that allows a person to interpret oneself from another's point of view. That is, it lets you turn inward to look at your brain or body from another person's point of view," he said.

Professor Ramachandran, whose pioneering work in mapping the human brain has won him international recognition as one of the world's most important neuroscientists, was delivering the N. Soundarajan Lecture on `How the brain and mind work' during a lecture series on `Enhancing the Brain-Empowering the Brain,' organised here by the Neurosciences India Group and the India chapter of the International Neuropsychiatry Association on Sunday.

"Persons with a mirror neuron deficiency have a poor sense of self-awareness. Questions such as concepts of self-awareness that have not been answered by philosophy may now be answered empirically through the study of mirror neurons," he said.

Unanswered questions

Perminder Sachdev of University of New South Wales, Australia, said though new technologies had been tested for enhancing the normal human brain — such as the technology to improve human memory — questions whether these enhancements were safe or would lead to a weakening of character were yet to be answered.

He was delivering the A. Apparao Lecture on `Enhancing the human brain-possibilities and pitfalls.'

Brain ageing

Some of the questions that confronted researchers on brain ageing were: how much of brain ageing is genetic and how much of it can be modified by lifestyle and how the brain ages, said Murali Doraisamy of Duke University, U.S., during the Dr.Lakshminarayanan Lecture on `Can we age-proof our brains?'

It might be possible with one or two years of rigorous memory training to take a brain from below average memory level to extraordinary.

Two types of genetic therapy were being experimented to increase brain longevity: gene insertion therapy and gene deletion therapy.

Studies also proved that meditation helped to cope with brain ageing.

How to maintain brain

Some of the ways to maintain the brain included being mentally, socially and physically active, eating smart and being `heart smart'.

Krishnamoorthy Srinivas, chairman, the Institute of Neurological Sciences, said the endowment lectures had been made possible by a generous grant by the families of N. Soundarajan, A. Apparao and Dr. Lakshminarayanan.

E.S. Krishnamoorthy, vice-chairman of the institute, spoke.

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