summary: One study showed that by the age of three, children are able to use active mirror neurons to understand the intentions of others, a finding that highlights the early development of a “resonance” system that is crucial for social cognition.
Researchers have discovered that the mylohyoid muscle in preschool children activates when they anticipate goal-directed actions, a finding that could aid in the early diagnosis of conditions such as autism spectrum disorder.
Key Facts:
- Early Understanding: Three-year-olds use mirror neurons to understand the intentions of others.
- Muscle activation: The mylohyoid muscle is activated during goal-directed action observation.
- Possible diagnosis: This may be useful for early detection of social cognitive impairment in autism.
sauce: Catholic University
At the age of three, children are able to understand other people and “mirror” them (i.e. imitate and predict the intentions of those around them). This is possible thanks to the sophisticated neurofunctional structures necessary for understanding the intentions of others – mirror neurons – which are already active at this age.
This is the result of a study published in a prestigious journal. PNASThe study was carried out in collaboration with Giacomo Rizzolatti of the University of Parma, the scientist who discovered mirror neurons, and a research group consisting of Cinzia Di Dio, Laura Miraglia and Giulia Peretti, and was coordinated by Antonella Marchetti, head of the Psychology Department at the Catholic University of Milan campus.
“This is a very important finding,” explains Professor Marchetti. “It shows that even at a young age, children have a ‘resonance’ system made up of mirror neurons that is the basis on which a more complex and explicit understanding of the social world can be built with development and experience.”
Preschoolers are capable of planning goal-directed motor action sequences, but their understanding of the intentions of others engaged in motor tasks has not been thoroughly investigated.
The Universidad Católica research group, in collaboration with Professor Rizzolatti, measured preschoolers’ ability to organize a sequence of motor actions by understanding the intention behind a sequence of actions by others.
To test this ability, the researchers measured activation of the mylohyoid muscle, which is involved in mouth-opening movements, while the children were grasping and eating food or grasping and placing paper in a container.
When grasping food, mylohyoid activation began several milliseconds before the movement was completed; when grasping paper, the muscle did not activate, suggesting a planned sequence of motor events focused on the movement goal.
Mylohyoid muscle activation occurred while observing the eating task, even when children observed the experimenter performing the same grasping task.
However, Professor Marchetti explains: “We found that muscle activation occurred more slowly compared to older children (aged 6-9 years) who were investigated in previous studies, who are underpinned by the emergence of more sophisticated cognitive processes.”
According to the authors, the results suggest that understanding others’ motor intentions is a developing ability in preschoolers.
“In conclusion,” emphasizes Professor Marchetti, “the current data further support the evidence regarding the different stages of children’s development in this area, in continuity with studies of infants showing early adaptations to goal-directed motor actions.”
Overall, these results may also be relevant in terms of early diagnosis, for example in children with autism spectrum disorders, making it possible to carry out psychophysical instrumental assessments for eventual deficits in intention understanding and possible fundamental prodromal disturbances in the development of social skills,” she concludes.
About this Neurodevelopmental Research News
author: Nicola Servino
sauce: Catholic University
contact: Nicola Cherubino – University of Cattolica
image: Image from Neuroscience News
Original Research: The access is closed.
“Behavioral chains and intention understanding in 3- to 6-year-old childrenBy Giacomo Rizzolatti and others. PNAS
Abstract
Behavioral chains and intention understanding in 3- to 6-year-old children
In intentional actions, the final goal of an action is important in determining the overall course of a motor act: the inferior parietal lobule of monkeys has been found to contain neurons that not only code specific motor acts (e.g., grasping), but whose discharge is modulated by the final goal of the intended action (e.g., grasping and eating).
Many of these “action-constrained” neurons have mirror properties that, when embedded in a particular action, respond to the observation of the motor act they encode.
Thanks to this mechanism, the observer has an internal copy of the entire action before it is executed and is thus able to understand the actor’s intention. Chain organization of motor actions has been demonstrated in primary school children.
Here we investigated whether this organization is already present in young children. For this purpose, we recorded electromyograms of the mylohyoid (MH) muscle in 3- to 6-year-old children. The results showed that preschool children, like older children, have a chain organization of motor actions during execution.
Interestingly, compared to older children, they are delayed in their ability to use this mechanism to infer others’ intentions by observation.
Finally, we found a significant negative correlation between MH muscle activation during the grasping and eating phase in the observation condition and children’s age, which we tentatively interpreted as a sign of immature control of motor acts.
