This is
a very interesting article on implementing the concept of mirror neurons into
an exercise setting. The author helps people who have injuries, say an
injured knee. The author discusses what he feels are some of the controversial claims
of mirror neuron researchers. He then goes on to suggest how to use what he
feels is truth about mirror in exercise routines/physical therapy. He explains
step by step how he has his clients watch videos to improve their exercising
results. I have yellow highlighted the interesting parts. I was excited
to see that the author’s step by step coaching regime is very similar to the
regime that I have been using in my coaching with clients who want to improve
their body language, first impressions, public speaking and interview
techniques for many years. I have highlighted this coaching approach in green.
Implementing the concept of mirror neurons
into an exercise setting
Posted on
January 5, 2014
From Wikipedia:
“A mirror
neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts
and when the animal observes the same action performed by another.”
If I drink a
beer neuron X fires. If neuron X also fires when I watch someone else drink a
beer, X is a mirror neuron.
In the
neuroscience world, mirror neurons are all the rage. You name it, and people
have come up with a possible application. Speech therapy, autism, empathy,
evolution, the list is extensive. However, it doesn’t take much scrolling to
get to the section in Wikipedia titled, “Doubts concerning mirror neurons.”
“According to
scientists such as Hickok, Pascolo, and Dinstein, it is not clear whether
mirror neurons really form a distinct class of cells (as opposed to an
occasional phenomenon seen in cells that have other functions), and
whether mirror activity is a distinct type of response or simply an artifact of
an overall facilitation of the motor system.”
Perhaps neuron
X fires when I drink a beer and when I watch someone drink a beer, but maybe
that’s 5% of what X does. Maybe X also spends 95% of its time on cell
communication. Rather than call X a mirror neuron, it’d be more appropriate to
say X is a “Communicative cell which also has mirroring properties.”
What you find
is much of the media, and the scientists, purporting mirror
neuron applications are making a lot of unsubstantiated claims.
First, the
majority of mirror neuron research has been done on monkeys, not humans.
Second, there’s
zero evidence for some of the touted benefits. Scientists have claimed mirror
neurons are what help us understand actions. In regards to autism, perhaps a
lack of mirror neurons, or a dysfunction in them, is part of the ailment? Say
someone makes a gesture at you. According the theory, your mirror neurons for
that gesture fire, causing you to understand what that person is doing. Issues
with your mirror neurons = issues understanding. And what’s a hallmark of
autistics? Trouble understanding social cues.
Greg Hickok of
UC Irvine has a lengthy, head spinning, evisceration of the idea mirror neurons
provide action understanding here. Fortunately, he
has some lighter reading on this topic in his blog
too. An
easy refutation for mirror neurons providing understanding is using the
condition Apraxia. From the National Institute of Health:
Apraxia is a
disorder of the brain and nervous system in which a person is unable to perform
tasks or movements when asked, even though:
·
The request or command is understood
·
They are willing to perform the task
·
The muscles needed to perform the task work properly
·
The task may have already been learned
So, Apraxia is
a condition in which the person is unable to perform a task despite being able
to understand the task. They have neurons which fire when it comes to
understanding the task, but not when it comes to completing the task. If the
mirror neuron theory of action understanding help up, this would be impossible.
As the same neurons which understand the task are supposed to be the same
neurons which complete the task.
A simpler
example: Your dog can understand when you throw a ball for them to fetch; they
know to chase it. Yet, your dog can’t throw a ball like you can. The dog has
neurons to understand your action of throwing, but these are not the same
neurons which help it throw a ball, because for the dog, those neurons don’t
exist.
When it comes
to action understanding, something else, a lot of something else, is
responsible besides mirror neurons.
It seems easy
enough until you realize neuroscientists have spent over a decade arguing about
this. Now, I’m no neuroscience expert, but with all the people I’ve trained
through the years, I know a little bit about how people understand and learn
actions.
I feel like
anyone who has coached people move in any capacity gets the following: Someone
doesn’t merely watch a task then understand it, at least not without prior
experience with that task. They watch it; maybe gain some understanding, then
perform it; maybe gain some understanding, then get feedback, gain
some more understanding, and so on.
Say you’re in
the gym and someone is learning a new exercise. Does anyone expect this person
to watch the new exercise then fully understand it? Where you demonstrate it
for them, then are so confident they understand things, you walk away knowing
they’ll have good form? Of course not. You demonstrate it, they do it, you give
them feedback, and so on.
This seems to be a big part of how we grow up and
comprehend the world. I wrote about this in my post on Dr. Drew’s book, The Mirror Effect. The idea is as we
grow up our parents, or whomever is around us a lot, provides a great deal of
our understanding of well, practically everything. (I
think this is so interesting.)
If a kid is in
pain, how does he or she even know what pain is? Sure, there’s some innate
component, but think about it. A kid is running around, trips and bumps his
head. He gets up, looks around, and overreacting mom comes rushing over
freaking out “OH MY GOD ARE YOU OK?!” The baby learns based off what they see;
what’s mirrored to them.
In other words:
kid bumps his head, mom demonstrates what happened is a painful event, kid
tries being in pain (they cry), mom gives feedback (“I know, I know, that must
of hurt”).
Watch what
happens in the following video. Notice when mom isn’t giving predictable
responses -many of which have been learned at this point, the baby freaks out:
This is a long
way of endorsing how trainers, therapists, teachers, whatever, should be
showing how to do something before asking someone else to do it. When it comes
to learning, visuals seem to be how we learn best. It’s better to show what
smiling is than to only ask someone to smile…It’s better to show what a lunge
is than to only ask someone to lunge.
So, mirror
neurons aren’t why we understand tasks. What do they do then? In fact, do these
things even exist?
-
Are mirror
neurons real?
As I mentioned,
an issue with the mirror neuron world is the majority of the research has been
on monkeys. There is research on humans though. Here are some papers that have
helped me wrap my head around this:
- fMRI Adaptation reveals Mirror Neurons in human inferior parietal
cortex (2008)
- Asymmetric fMRI adaptation reveals no evidence for mirror neurons in
humans (April 2009)
- Evidence of Mirror Neurons in Human Inferior Frontal Gyrus (August
2009)
Notice the
titles and the dates. In 2008 mirror neurons were found in humans. In April
2009 we found no evidence for them. Then a few months later we found evidence
for them. And I’m only picking a few studies.
On top of this,
these studies are insanely hard reads. This is partly because it is high level
stuff, and partly because academics of this sort like to write in the manner
of, “SPEAK ENGLISH!!!”
Because of the
above, in combination with my remedial knowledge of this stuff, I’m not going
to delve into these studies. Here are some major points:
-One of the
confounding issues is which area of the brain is looked at. Not all studies
look in the same area. “Why don’t they all look at the entire brain to simplify
this?” Apparently, when you look at only one area you get a much better idea of
what’s going on than when you look at multiple areas. Some scientists have
different hunches as to where the mirror neurons lay. So, that’s one reason
they decide to direct their research in certain brain areas. There’s a race to
find these things and each scientist thinks they have the fastest route.
-Not all
studies assess the same movements. From a different paper, What
we currently know about mirror neurons:
“Mirror neurons
were originally defined as neurons which ‘‘discharged both during monkey’s
active movements and when the monkey observed meaningful hand movements made by
the experimenter.” Thus, the key characteristics of mirror neurons are that
their activity is modulated both by action execution and action observation,
and that this activity shows a degree of action specificity.”
The last part
is the most important. In order for mirror neurons to fire, specific actions
have to happen. This is what the researchers call “Goal oriented actions.”
Think the difference between reaching for a piece of food and randomly moving
the arms. The first is goal oriented; the second is not. Mirror neurons fire in
the former; they don’t for the latter.
-The last
study, which found mirror neurons, seems to be the best out of the group. They
used goal directed actions and they looked in a place where it makes sense
mirror neurons would be.
Let’s bring
back the criticism quote from the beginning:
“According to scientists such as Hickok, Pascolo, and
Dinstein, it is not clear whether mirror neurons really form a distinct class
of cells (as opposed to an occasional phenomenon seen in cells that have other
functions), and whether mirror activity is a distinct type of response or simply an
artifact of an overall facilitation of the motor system.”
This still holds. What the studies show is cells appear
to have the ability to mirror, but we don’t know if there are neurons whose
sole function is to do this. For our purposes, does this even matter? If there
is a mechanism for mirroring; there is real world application to be had.
Some
understanding of why the brain is doing this can help with our application.
-
What do mirror
neurons really do?
Remember,
Hickok has been one of main critics of the role of mirror neurons, BUT, he
believes they exist. His criticism is aimed at what other scientists have
proposed their role to be. Therefore (from his blog),
“I’d like to
propose the idea mirror neurons take sensory input for a motor purpose.
Can we learn
something from the behavior of dogs? If you’ve played fetch with a dog you may
have noticed that it quickly learns to anticipate the consequences of throwing
actions. For example, it is not hard to fool a naive dog who plays a lot of
fetch with a fake throw. Even though the ball isn’t flying through the air the
dog may nonetheless take off in chase.
Presumably, the
animal has learned to recognize throwing actions. This is interesting because
dogs can’t throw and so can’t have throwing mirror neurons. This is also
interesting because somehow the action observation, throwing, is triggering an
action execution, chasing, in the dog. This tells us that and action
observation-execution sensory-motor circuit exists in the animal.
There may even
be “chase” cells in the dog’s motor cortex that fire both during action
observation and action execution.
“Observed
actions can serve as important inputs to action selection, including but not
necessarily limited to, mirror actions. “
As a dog, you
have a mirror system for certain movements. Your owner throws a ball, your
mirror system fires, reflecting the throwing motion, which signals you to chase
after the ball. The sensory input is you seeing the throw, the motor response
is you chasing the ball. Sensory input => Motor response.
If you’re a
human though: You still have a mirror system for certain movements; you watch
someone throw a ball, your mirror system fires, reflecting the throwing motion,
which can possibly signal you to also throw a ball.
If you’re a
dog, your brain can mirror the action, your body cannot. If you’re a human,
your brain can mirror the action, and so you can your body. If you’re a dog,
you can’t form a motor response which mirrors the sensory input. You have the
neurons to mirror a throwing a motion; you don’t have the neurons to respond
with a throwing motion. If you’re a human, you do.
What’s crucial here, I believe, is it appears if you are
able to generate a motor response that mirrors the sensory input, the brain
circuitry is the same. This is referred to as producing the same neural
substrate.
For example, you watch someone throw a ball, your brain
fires in the “throw a ball” manner, producing the “throw a ball” neural
substrate. Whether you watch someone throw a ball or throw a ball yourself,
this neural substrate is the same. So, watching someone throw a ball can help
you throw a ball as the brain is practicing the same circuitry. Whether your
own body moves or not, your brain is practicing the movement. If you’re a dog,
this isn’t true. But we’re not worried about dogs.
We now have our framework for real world application.
-
Implementation
Think of athletes. When trying to
change their technique, what do they often do? They watch film. Usually a
combination of themselves to understand their flaws, along with watching
whatever it is they’re trying to attain.
Say you think Roger Federer has perfect forehand
technique, and your forehand technique is lacking. You may watch film of
Federer to pick up on his technique. We now have an idea why this works: the
mirror system. Watching his forehand technique produces a similar circuitry in
your brain, as if you actually swung your racquet.
There’s another perk of learning this way- it’s less
intense. As a baseball pitcher, you can’t work on your technique through actual
throwing indefinitely. You can’t throw everyday, all day. You’ll overtrain,
burn out, get hurt, lose strength, etc.
I wrote about this in How many sets and reps to correct
muscular imbalances? I used
strength and hypertrophy in that post to exemplify there is an optimal amount
of volume when trying to get attain something, such as getting stronger and
bigger. Go above or below this threshold and you run the risk of attenuating
gains. You can’t always be “on.”
The brain however, is always on. So, using our mirror
system enables us extra practice without the expense of hampering gains. We’re
still using the brain, but we leave the musculoskeletal system alone.
“Isn’t this mental
imagery / visualization?”
Not quite!
This is where the work of Lorimer Moseley and the NOIgroup comes in handy. They have a
great resource, The Graded Motor Imagery Handbook. They talk about how
different levels of imagery elicit different levels of brain activation.
Visualization / motor imagery, imagining yourself doing a movement, elicits the
greatest level of brain activation without actually moving.
Contrast this with observing people (mirror system),
which is, they think (we don’t know for sure yet), the lowest level of brain
activation.
So, compared to motor imagery, we’re activating less of
the brain.
“Isn’t that bad?”
When you put things into the context of an exercise
program, no. I think it’s actually good. Just like the muscles, it’s not like
the brain can be on 24/7. Using observation allows us to practice
at the lowest intensity level possible.
Speaking of
context, let’s remember we’re using all this in the realm of teaching people
how to move differently. We’re usually trying to get people out of habits that
have been ingrained for a long time. In my experience, people have a very hard
time initially knowing when they’re moving better. They just don’t know where
there body is in space. They forget their knees are caving in, how they’re
standing, their elbow positioning, whatever it is. They need constant reminder
and feedback of how to move differently.
Let’s say this
population uses motor imagery. Instead of squatting, they’re imagining
themselves squat. How does anyone know if their form is bad? There’s no way to
give them feedback. If I’m working with someone I can’t let them know their
knees are caving if their knees aren’t actually moving!
This is
important because we don’t want them getting better at a dysfunctional
movement. And, in motor imagery, the brain is firing almost as much as if they
were actually moving. You might not be able to see the dysfunction, yet they
could still be practicing the dysfunction in their head.
Therefore, I
believe using observation is better. Here’s how I do it:
- In a corrective setting,
from Monday – Sunday I outline what to do for people. 6 of those 7 days
involves actual exercise. 3 of the 6 days are dedicated to one workout,
workout “A”; the other 3 of the 6 days are dedicated to the other workout,
workout “B.” This fits in line with the optimal frequency to train muscle
groups for beginners.
- One of the 7 days there is no regular
exercise. Instead, I have the person focus on their activities of daily
living. They’re going to be moving during the day; let’s do it well.
I also have them watch videos of the proper form of certain
exercises, and I have them observe other people’s movement dysfunctions
which are similar to theirs.
Let me use a recent example; someone with a common issue.
Alex is someone presenting with knee pain. His femurs tend to rotate inwards
too much, and his lower leg tends to rotate outwards too much. His knees turn
in too much; his feet turn out too much.
On Monday, Thursday and Saturday, he has various
exercises aimed at working on this. On Tuesday, Friday and Sunday, he also has
various exercises working on this, but these 3 days of exercise are different
than Monday, Thursday and Saturday. This way we’re not working the exact same
muscles and movements more than 3 days per week.
On Wednesdays, when there is no prescribed exercise, Alex
works on his ADLs (he also does this the rest of the week), which are aimed at
his movement dysfunction.
Next, he watches some of his prescribed exercises to
further ingrain proper form. He might watch the ones which have been the
hardest for him to nail down, the ones I think have most benefit, or the ones
which tend to give him pain. This way he gets to watch people do a movement
which may give him pain, in a pain free manner.
Finally, he watches other people throughout the day.
Observing others who 1) Have the same issue and 2) Don’t have the same issue.
Paying close attention to the differences between these groups. Now his observation
has a goal. It’s not random people watching; it’s people watching with a
specific focus. The idea being he wants to “mirror” the better movement and
learn to avoid the improper. He takes his sensory input -watching good and bad
movement at the lower body, and uses that to form a motor response -his own
good movement of the lower body.
This way, 7 days per week, Alex is working on moving
better. Whether it’s through actually moving better throughout the day,
specific exercises, watching other people, all week he’s doing it.
As you can see, I’m only prescribing this with people one
day per week. The person can do it more throughout the week, and I think that’s
a good idea, but there’s only so much time I can expect out of clients. Because
I’m getting used to this myself too, this seemed like a nice way to start
things.
In terms of
research to back this up, Moseley’s group has had some good success clinically,
but haven’t really studied something of this nature yet. There are a ton
of studies illustrating
the benefits of using motor imagery in conjunction to physical therapy, but
again, this isn’t really motor imagery, and I’ve only seen studies on
neurological patients.
As far as I know,
the only population trying something like this is athletes, which is a good
thing. I’m
not big on training people like athletes, but it’s uncanny how often the
athletes are ahead of the researchers.
Peyton Manning
recently had to sit out of practice due to an ankle injury. He needed to give
his soft tissue some time to relax. But, he knows his brain is always on.
That’s why you still see him doing mental reps:
Hard to argue
with the results. Sensory input -watching film and reading pictures => Motor
output -destroying defenses (except when it’s cold). Maybe Eli should work on
his mirror system more. BOOM! Hall of famer my ass!
Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.
