The interpretation of mu suppression as an index of mirror neuron activity: past, present and future

Hannah Hobson; Dorothy V. M. Bishop

doi:10.1098/rsos.160662

The interpretation of mu suppression as an index of mirror neuron activity: past, present and future

Hannah Hobson, Dorothy V. M. Bishop

Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Mu suppression studies have been widely used to infer the activity of the human mirror neuron system (MNS) in a number of processes, ranging from action understanding, language, empathy and the development of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Although mu suppression is enjoying a resurgence of interest, it has a long history. This review aimed to revisit mu?s past, and examine its recent use to investigate MNS involvement in language, social processes and ASDs. Mu suppression studies have largely failed to produce robust evidence for the role of the MNS in these domains. Several key potential shortcomings with the use and interpretation of mu suppression, documented in the older literature and highlighted by more recent reports, are explored here.

Original language	English
Journal	Royal Society Open Science
Volume	4
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160662
Publication status	Published - 1 Mar 2017

Bibliographical note

copyright 2017 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.

Keywords

electroencephalogram, mirror neurons, mu rhythm, alpha rhythm

Access to Document

10.1098/rsos.160662

http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/19509/

Cite this

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