WEBVTT 00:00:03.497 --> 00:00:10.497 This is the Convergent Science Network podcast. Leading researchers in the domain 00:00:10.497 --> 00:00:16.717 of neuroscience, brain theory and technology are interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott. 00:00:22.637 --> 00:00:26.937 Here's Paul Verschure with the Convergent Science Network podcast together with 00:00:26.937 --> 00:00:28.597 my colleague Tony Prescott. 00:00:28.597 --> 00:00:33.517 And today we're having a conversation with Giacomo Rizzolatti, 00:00:33.677 --> 00:00:38.977 who gave a fantastic talk this morning in our 10th edition of our summer school, 00:00:39.277 --> 00:00:41.137 Barcelona Cognition, Brain, and Technology. 00:00:42.517 --> 00:00:48.577 So Giacomo, you were building on your long tradition of work on the mirror neuron 00:00:48.577 --> 00:00:52.897 system, and the outlook of your talk was to move from a mirror neuron to the 00:00:52.897 --> 00:00:55.437 mirror brain. This is really now the ambition, right? 00:00:55.497 --> 00:00:59.297 To show the more general relevance of this general idea. 00:00:59.697 --> 00:01:04.457 But maybe to really understand the significance of it, it would be very useful 00:01:04.457 --> 00:01:09.497 to really try to understand in detail what we exactly mean with a mirror neuron. 00:01:10.317 --> 00:01:16.177 So what's the core behavior or what's the core base of evidence that makes you 00:01:16.177 --> 00:01:17.277 speak of a mirror neuron? 00:01:17.277 --> 00:01:23.217 Well, the basic evidence is still the old one, that we have neurons in the motor 00:01:23.217 --> 00:01:30.437 system which fire when the monkey grasps an object, and when the monkey observes 00:01:30.437 --> 00:01:32.217 another people doing it. 00:01:32.437 --> 00:01:38.797 Note that it should be the action with a similar goal. It's not simply visual motor transformation. 00:01:39.057 --> 00:01:43.957 It's exactly you see something and you do something similar. So that's the basis. 00:01:44.897 --> 00:01:48.237 Subsequently, in humans, it's very difficult to record single neurons, 00:01:48.417 --> 00:01:54.937 but we have a lot of data with fMRI and now more recently with gamma-rhythm 00:01:54.937 --> 00:01:58.657 that this mechanism is really diffusive. 00:01:58.677 --> 00:02:01.077 It's not only in the premotor cortex. 00:02:01.397 --> 00:02:05.857 That's why we think that we have to enlarge the concept. Okay. 00:02:06.157 --> 00:02:13.277 So let's first look at the work in the macaque monkey where the core ideas were 00:02:13.277 --> 00:02:14.397 sort of fleshed out initially. 00:02:15.037 --> 00:02:19.897 So how general is this effect? 00:02:19.957 --> 00:02:24.237 So you say, okay, it must be related to the same goal. So that means if I observe 00:02:24.237 --> 00:02:30.317 another agent or that's sort of morphologically comparable to myself, 00:02:30.637 --> 00:02:35.637 perform a certain task or a certain goal, let's say eat a peanut, 00:02:35.797 --> 00:02:39.897 or I perform this action myself being the macaque monkey in the monkey chair. 00:02:41.206 --> 00:02:46.166 Dual-fied neurons in specific areas of its cortex that respond to both that 00:02:46.166 --> 00:02:50.346 observation of the goal-directed action and the execution of the goal-directed action. 00:02:50.686 --> 00:02:55.366 What's the minimum set of neurons that are involved in that? 00:02:56.786 --> 00:03:02.266 What do you mean by minimal? Where we know is the parietal lobe, 00:03:02.486 --> 00:03:06.246 two areas in parietal lobe, area AAP and PFG. 00:03:06.246 --> 00:03:12.626 We know about area F5, and recently it has been discovered in London by Roger 00:03:12.626 --> 00:03:17.746 Lemon that corticospinal tract has many neurons with mirror properties, 00:03:18.106 --> 00:03:23.566 both starting from area F5, but also from primary motor cords. 00:03:23.746 --> 00:03:29.506 So that means we have a parietal premotor motor kind of circuit that would sustain. 00:03:29.506 --> 00:03:34.066 I would say there is a pattern, a schema, using the word of Michael Arpib. 00:03:34.246 --> 00:03:38.526 Right. There is a motor schema, which is rather diffused. It's four, 00:03:38.586 --> 00:03:40.606 five centers which collaborate. 00:03:41.226 --> 00:03:45.846 Altogether, they create a motor schema in my brain, and I see the same motor 00:03:45.846 --> 00:03:47.946 schema in your brain. Right. I understand it. 00:03:48.246 --> 00:03:52.606 But now, so we have sort of parietal premotor motor circuit. 00:03:54.066 --> 00:03:59.346 But that's still fairly broad. So how many neurons within that circuit would you really say are now, 00:04:00.291 --> 00:04:05.031 identifiable as mirror neurons and how many of how big a fraction will be doing other things? 00:04:05.411 --> 00:04:11.651 I don't know. Now we have a method in which we can maybe learn more because 00:04:11.651 --> 00:04:18.491 in the past we have a single neuron and it was very hard to make a sample. 00:04:18.791 --> 00:04:23.771 But now the technology allows you to record from several points in the same 00:04:23.771 --> 00:04:28.311 electrode and to put many electrodes in parallel in the cortex. 00:04:28.731 --> 00:04:33.911 So for example, my colleague Bonini, a young assistant professor, 00:04:34.171 --> 00:04:36.431 now is recording from many, many neurons. 00:04:36.511 --> 00:04:39.751 So we can give you in short time data at the moment. 00:04:40.751 --> 00:04:44.611 What's your expectation though? What do you expect? Well, in layer three, 00:04:44.771 --> 00:04:49.411 I think it's a large number of neurons have this property. If you go down, they are motor. 00:04:50.151 --> 00:04:54.551 So I think there is a laminar distribution. Unfortunately, in the monkey, 00:04:54.551 --> 00:04:59.491 is very difficult to record it because part of a five it's laying, 00:05:00.171 --> 00:05:05.251 near the sulcus so if you go down with the electrode you change continuously 00:05:05.251 --> 00:05:10.251 columns you cannot do a columnar work so easily ok so now we have this basic 00:05:10.251 --> 00:05:15.871 circuit we know neurons expecting layer 3 participate in that but how did you really, 00:05:16.551 --> 00:05:21.571 stumble into the existence of these neurons was it like a chance discovery or 00:05:21.571 --> 00:05:24.251 you were really looking for them you knew where to look and you found them. 00:05:25.171 --> 00:05:30.131 No, it was not a priori, how we can think such a strange thing a priori. 00:05:30.311 --> 00:05:37.731 So what we are doing, we were studying the motor system, but with a kind of ethological approach. 00:05:38.051 --> 00:05:42.231 So looking if there are visual responses, if the visual responses are related 00:05:42.231 --> 00:05:44.691 to food or to other objects and so on. 00:05:44.771 --> 00:05:52.151 And we first discovered neurons which fire in relation to the presentation of object. 00:05:52.691 --> 00:05:56.331 And that was something that we did in collaboration with a Japanese group. 00:05:56.531 --> 00:05:59.251 And now these neurons are called canonical neurons. 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:04.340 What they do is just a transformation of object into action. 00:06:04.520 --> 00:06:09.580 The surprise was that some of these neurons do not want the object, want the action. 00:06:10.420 --> 00:06:15.200 And that's how we discover it. But then what was the specific paradigm? 00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:19.520 What was the very first experiment in which a penny dropped, 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:22.240 if you want, that you said, okay, we found it, this is it? 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:29.220 I must say that we observed this phenomenon several times. And I was the guy 00:06:29.220 --> 00:06:32.740 who tried to say, be calm. 00:06:33.100 --> 00:06:37.220 It could be an artifact because my young colleague said, we have to publish, 00:06:37.540 --> 00:06:39.260 send to nature, send to science. 00:06:39.560 --> 00:06:41.600 I said, well, let's wait a bit. 00:06:42.100 --> 00:06:47.540 And then eventually it appeared in Brain and it had been cited 5,000 times. 00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:52.720 But how many experiments does it take for you to be convinced? Three years. 00:06:54.600 --> 00:06:58.740 Because we have to record EMG. You know, we are in the motor system. 00:06:59.680 --> 00:07:04.240 We are not so obsessive like Roger Lemmon who recorded 25 muscles. 00:07:04.540 --> 00:07:10.800 But anyway, we recorded the most important to be sure there is no artifact due to movements. Right. 00:07:11.440 --> 00:07:16.000 Now, in the response of these neurons, are there response patterns? 00:07:16.100 --> 00:07:24.580 We look at peristimulus histograms or rates of firing. But is there anything 00:07:24.580 --> 00:07:28.260 special or unique about the response patterns of these neurons? 00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:30.260 Or you can just look at the rate and that's it? 00:07:31.020 --> 00:07:37.540 At the beginning, we tried to find something, but at least with the methods 00:07:37.540 --> 00:07:40.340 that we have at the time, we haven't found anything. 00:07:40.580 --> 00:07:47.560 It seems the intensity most frequently is higher, stronger for action than for observation. 00:07:50.056 --> 00:07:55.936 I think when we came on to start talking about the function of the mirror neurons, 00:07:56.716 --> 00:08:02.076 you gave a quote, I think, from Mark Jennerod, and that was that a mere visual 00:08:02.076 --> 00:08:07.296 perception without involvement of the motor system would only provide a description 00:08:07.296 --> 00:08:09.656 of the visible aspects of the movement of the agent, 00:08:10.276 --> 00:08:14.536 but it would not give precise information about the intrinsic components of 00:08:14.536 --> 00:08:17.376 the observed action, which are critical for understanding. 00:08:17.376 --> 00:08:24.816 So what I take from that is that you see the mirror neuron as the path for how 00:08:24.816 --> 00:08:27.276 our brains understand what other people are doing. 00:08:27.716 --> 00:08:31.016 Now you're touching a very dangerous thing. 00:08:31.416 --> 00:08:34.556 Because when you said understanding, you say, what do you mean? 00:08:34.716 --> 00:08:38.156 Well, it was a good quote, yeah. No, it's correct. You are correct. 00:08:38.776 --> 00:08:43.036 It's me that the people say to me, why you don't use recognizing or why you 00:08:43.036 --> 00:08:45.116 don't use another words? 00:08:45.116 --> 00:08:52.656 But I think with understanding, we imply that you not only recognize the action, 00:08:52.736 --> 00:08:55.636 but you can generalize to say that's grasping. 00:08:55.716 --> 00:08:59.916 It's not grasping with the hand or grasping with... It's just grasping. 00:09:00.216 --> 00:09:06.376 Instead, the visual area cannot generalize because when you see, 00:09:06.516 --> 00:09:13.816 for example, a hand with glass, you cannot generalize to the other hand because it's a visual area. 00:09:13.816 --> 00:09:16.536 They just say, this hand and this glass. 00:09:16.796 --> 00:09:21.316 So generalization is something which really, I think, requires the motor system. 00:09:21.596 --> 00:09:25.896 That's why I prefer understanding in the sense that you can use it for many 00:09:25.896 --> 00:09:28.936 purposes, not just describe what is going on in that moment. 00:09:29.436 --> 00:09:34.436 And people have taken this idea and they've kind of flown with it to sort of 00:09:34.436 --> 00:09:38.456 imagine simulation engines inside our heads heads, 00:09:38.456 --> 00:09:44.716 that are able to imagine actions and create them without performing them, 00:09:44.796 --> 00:09:48.116 and also when you see a person, you can recreate that inside your head. 00:09:48.276 --> 00:09:50.576 How far do you want to push it in that direction? 00:09:50.876 --> 00:09:57.276 Well, I like very much the speculation of the philosopher Goldman, Olving Goldman. 00:09:57.516 --> 00:10:04.996 He decided to split in the lower level, a mirroring, and a higher level mirroring. 00:10:04.996 --> 00:10:07.396 Lower mirroring is what I described. 00:10:07.756 --> 00:10:12.676 Higher mirroring is one you cannot understand immediately, and then you try 00:10:12.676 --> 00:10:19.396 cognitively to replicate the data, so you make an effort from yourself, from internal. 00:10:19.756 --> 00:10:22.876 Instead, mirror neurons tell you immediately what's going on. 00:10:23.878 --> 00:10:28.598 But I can be unable to understand, then I think, what I will do in this occasion? 00:10:28.818 --> 00:10:31.238 What is the point of view if I move my head? 00:10:31.518 --> 00:10:36.158 That's what he called higher-order mirroring. And how would that affect? 00:10:36.298 --> 00:10:39.278 So if you observe a novel action that you haven't seen before, 00:10:39.978 --> 00:10:43.998 how would your mirror neurons operate in that context? 00:10:44.058 --> 00:10:46.498 Would they try and generalize from something they have seen? 00:10:47.678 --> 00:10:53.018 I don't know about single action. We did an experiment in which there is a pattern 00:10:53.018 --> 00:10:55.938 of action, like make a chord on the guitar. 00:10:57.038 --> 00:11:01.738 So what happens is that you learn it by cutting, for example, 00:11:01.738 --> 00:11:05.678 these two fingers, then two of these fingers, and then you reorganize. 00:11:06.038 --> 00:11:10.818 Reorganization is not made by mirror neurons, but by the prefrontal lobe. 00:11:10.818 --> 00:11:15.718 The prefrontal lobe is the head of orchestra who put together this elementary 00:11:15.718 --> 00:11:22.238 movement that you took away from the mirror system and organize the new chord, the new movement. 00:11:22.558 --> 00:11:25.838 I suppose also the new movement, but I have no data about sequences. 00:11:26.598 --> 00:11:29.778 That's a good metaphor because both Paul and I are guitar players. 00:11:30.938 --> 00:11:36.458 But Tony is a lot better than me. My mirror neuron system is now active with 00:11:36.458 --> 00:11:39.578 the thought of us learning chords from each other. 00:11:39.578 --> 00:11:42.358 There yeah so they but what i get you're saying 00:11:42.358 --> 00:11:45.078 is that i might not know the chord that you're showing me but 00:11:45.078 --> 00:11:47.958 i know how to put my fingers in each of those places and so 00:11:47.958 --> 00:11:51.138 i can build up the representation of the whole chord from 00:11:51.138 --> 00:11:58.238 these components which i recognize yeah but so okay but now there's there's 00:11:58.238 --> 00:12:02.498 a little challenge here i believe and i don't mean this in sort of a metaphysical 00:12:02.498 --> 00:12:06.578 way but we could because as you said earlier and also the examples you showed 00:12:06.578 --> 00:12:10.798 us there must be a matching of the goals of the act, right? 00:12:10.878 --> 00:12:16.518 You make a sort of movement to, let's say, obtain a peanut, right? So there's a goal. 00:12:18.152 --> 00:12:22.672 But there's a potential circularity now, because how can the observing monkey, 00:12:22.772 --> 00:12:30.512 in this case, from whom you're measuring, how can you be certain about the goal of that other agent? 00:12:30.672 --> 00:12:34.232 So I could also say, does it really need to be goal, or is it, 00:12:34.252 --> 00:12:36.552 let's say, the directedness of the action itself? 00:12:36.712 --> 00:12:39.892 Like there's an action, the action is oriented towards an object, 00:12:40.032 --> 00:12:44.552 and it's that relationship that has to match, irrespective of what the goal 00:12:44.552 --> 00:12:45.832 might be of the other agent. 00:12:45.832 --> 00:12:52.232 Or at best, I just infer the goal of the agent from this perception-action relationship. 00:12:53.252 --> 00:12:56.372 So how am I going to bring in goal here? Do we really need it? 00:12:57.592 --> 00:13:05.792 Well, I think I infer, but remember that motor neurons in premotor cortex, they code already goal. 00:13:06.832 --> 00:13:11.932 So if you admit that one neuron A, fire, give a certain information, 00:13:11.932 --> 00:13:19.212 It doesn't matter if it's my will which moves the hand, or when I observe him, I move. 00:13:19.372 --> 00:13:23.272 So the output will be the same because the connections are the same. 00:13:23.532 --> 00:13:27.992 And so in this moment, the action is recognized. 00:13:29.492 --> 00:13:34.572 But if I may, there is one point that you may be marginally touching. 00:13:34.572 --> 00:13:40.492 There is a contradiction because to imitation, according to ethologists, 00:13:40.832 --> 00:13:43.532 is to repeat exactly the movement. 00:13:43.652 --> 00:13:46.172 To reach the goal, I can use different. 00:13:46.472 --> 00:13:51.152 That's a point which has been raised by Chibra, and he was right because there is. 00:13:53.369 --> 00:13:56.669 A tension between the two concepts. 00:13:56.929 --> 00:14:02.509 You could not have both. And I think monkey have only the capacity to reach the goal. 00:14:02.689 --> 00:14:09.609 Human have an additional system for imitation, which you can replicate exactly the movement. 00:14:10.049 --> 00:14:17.589 That's done in the humans, of course, of the finger in the guitar or play piano or all this stuff. 00:14:17.869 --> 00:14:22.789 But in that sense, do you believe that the internal state of the monkey will 00:14:22.789 --> 00:14:24.709 then modulate the response of the mirror. 00:14:24.829 --> 00:14:28.429 Let's imagine we talk about objects and actions that are ambiguous. 00:14:28.949 --> 00:14:32.529 There's an object I can use in two ways, but depending on whether I'm thirsty 00:14:32.529 --> 00:14:34.709 or hungry, I would go for pattern A or B. 00:14:35.749 --> 00:14:42.069 So if the monkey is hungry, then its mirror neuron system will bias towards 00:14:42.069 --> 00:14:43.809 the hunger interpretation. 00:14:44.109 --> 00:14:47.769 And if it's thirsty, we go to the thirst interpretation. Is this internal motivational 00:14:47.769 --> 00:14:52.849 state now defining the mirror and urn response, or would you think that the 00:14:52.849 --> 00:14:54.829 mirror and urn response would be independent of that? 00:14:55.169 --> 00:15:01.249 No, I suppose it should be a modulation, but I don't have empirical data to answer you. 00:15:01.829 --> 00:15:09.069 There is a group in Germany who noticed that the intensity of response is stronger 00:15:09.069 --> 00:15:15.789 if the object that you act upon has significance for the monkey. 00:15:16.669 --> 00:15:21.009 So it's much stronger if it's cheap food than if there is something which is 00:15:21.009 --> 00:15:22.349 not interesting for many. 00:15:22.509 --> 00:15:28.369 So in a sense, there is something in this sense, but it's not really an experiment done. 00:15:30.171 --> 00:15:36.011 You described an experiment which cast some light on this question of the motivated 00:15:36.011 --> 00:15:42.371 nature of the system, which was where you compared humans with monkeys and with dogs. 00:15:42.651 --> 00:15:48.771 And if we observe a human eating or a monkey eating a banana or a dog eating, 00:15:48.931 --> 00:15:52.391 in each case, and it was quite remarkable, you said that there's a mirror neuron 00:15:52.391 --> 00:15:54.111 response even for the dog eating. 00:15:54.371 --> 00:16:00.231 Yeah. And you compared that with the situation where we're looking at communication, 00:16:00.491 --> 00:16:02.291 where you're looking at a human speaker. 00:16:02.891 --> 00:16:07.751 I think you were looking at a monkey making lip movements, and then you were 00:16:07.751 --> 00:16:08.791 looking at the dog barking. 00:16:08.931 --> 00:16:12.891 And in the case of the dog barking, there was no mirror neuron response. 00:16:13.031 --> 00:16:18.671 So the mirror neuron generalizes to dogs eating, but not to dogs barking. 00:16:18.671 --> 00:16:24.631 Now, this is interesting, but I didn't quite grasp why you think that is. 00:16:24.751 --> 00:16:26.251 What's the core explanation? 00:16:26.731 --> 00:16:29.851 It depends on what you have inside yourself. 00:16:30.371 --> 00:16:37.571 You have some motor programs, which include biting, and the dog has the same motor program, biting. 00:16:37.731 --> 00:16:40.551 We have a program for talking. 00:16:40.811 --> 00:16:46.311 Dog have a program for barking. But we don't have a program for barking. 00:16:46.311 --> 00:16:49.071 So barking, we have to understand in a different way. 00:16:50.071 --> 00:16:53.331 But I can imagine barking and making kind of barking sounds. 00:16:54.571 --> 00:16:59.531 Metaphorically, actually, we even use this. Of course. I often tell Tony, stop barking at me. 00:17:01.291 --> 00:17:05.671 Tony says, stop wagging your tail. I can also bark here. 00:17:07.811 --> 00:17:10.731 I know what me is supposed to talk about. 00:17:11.391 --> 00:17:14.411 But actually, we can push it a bit further. So do you believe that, 00:17:14.511 --> 00:17:20.211 imagine it would not be a dog, but it would be, let's say, an animal with whom 00:17:20.211 --> 00:17:24.491 we don't share any sort of morphology, like we take a whale, okay? 00:17:25.580 --> 00:17:34.400 Do you think that we need some sort of morphological matching with that other organism or not? 00:17:34.460 --> 00:17:38.320 At least the dog has still, let's say, the kind of face we might recognize. 00:17:38.580 --> 00:17:41.880 We have to put sort of anthropomorphized dogs also very often. 00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:46.340 So is that an important modulator of this? If I have a non-anthropomorphic agent 00:17:46.340 --> 00:17:49.380 who would express these kinds of actions, would it then break down? 00:17:50.220 --> 00:17:53.980 Well, I think the basic should be to have a motor program. Of course, 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:57.040 the motor program of biting is present also in other animals, 00:17:57.100 --> 00:18:01.800 like in rodents, but morphologically it's a bit different. 00:18:02.180 --> 00:18:07.460 Another difference between those two situations is that in the eating, 00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:11.940 you have a cue, which is the food item, which maybe helps your mirror system 00:18:11.940 --> 00:18:16.880 see the dog biting as being like biting, whereas in the bark, 00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:20.780 there's nothing to cue that that's what the action is. 00:18:20.780 --> 00:18:27.160 I wonder if the mirror system activation is a product of this mixture of the 00:18:27.160 --> 00:18:31.300 visual cues and sort of recognizing the motivation. That's a very good point 00:18:31.300 --> 00:18:34.120 because the mirror neuron is really goal-directed. 00:18:34.200 --> 00:18:39.720 But goal must be in animal life, in the monkey life, it's not an abstract gesture. 00:18:39.860 --> 00:18:41.940 So goal is an object, it's dark. 00:18:42.200 --> 00:18:46.960 So maybe really you're right that the food helped it. 00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:50.680 We have to do another experiment. Okay. 00:18:52.160 --> 00:18:55.640 But in that sense, you could also argue it's about the invariances, 00:18:56.638 --> 00:18:59.578 in the environment and the environment you share with other agents. 00:18:59.918 --> 00:19:03.138 So for instance, imagine I would live together with whales. 00:19:04.598 --> 00:19:08.878 I might be able to develop mirror and learn responses with whales or them with 00:19:08.878 --> 00:19:11.818 me if I learn how to catch herring, let's say. 00:19:12.958 --> 00:19:16.378 Would you believe that indeed it's the statistics of the interaction with the 00:19:16.378 --> 00:19:20.818 environment and also the consistency of our behaviors as compared to other agents 00:19:20.818 --> 00:19:24.618 that would allow you to then learn those mirror responses in this context? 00:19:24.618 --> 00:19:31.698 No, I prefer to think that we must share the same motor program from evolution. 00:19:32.598 --> 00:19:36.658 As a matter of fact, the problem with rodents, we have such a difficulty to 00:19:36.658 --> 00:19:41.538 find mirror neurons in rodents, but because we have no communication with rodents, 00:19:41.598 --> 00:19:44.258 rodents look at nothing, go away, that's finished. 00:19:44.558 --> 00:19:49.378 With the monkeys, much easier. So, should you believe that the mirror neuron 00:19:49.378 --> 00:19:54.158 system is learned on top of behavioral priors? 00:19:55.278 --> 00:20:00.878 Or is it a morphological prior because we have hands? Well, that's even more complicated. 00:20:01.038 --> 00:20:06.798 No, I think the basis should be to have a motor program. And the motor program improves, increases. 00:20:07.358 --> 00:20:11.118 I mean, I play tennis and Federer plays tennis. I think there is a big difference. 00:20:11.598 --> 00:20:14.738 So, why? Why? Because he learned much more than me. 00:20:14.858 --> 00:20:19.518 Maybe he has more talent and so on. But anyway, of course, all of us can play 00:20:19.518 --> 00:20:21.118 tennis after three lectures. 00:20:21.458 --> 00:20:26.578 But then it's a big difference between who has been in practice and who has not. 00:20:26.878 --> 00:20:32.478 Okay, but now this idea that it's all predicated on shared motor programs, 00:20:33.078 --> 00:20:35.058 what's the data you have to support that? 00:20:36.138 --> 00:20:39.118 Well, first, because we discovered it in the motor cortex. 00:20:39.878 --> 00:20:45.678 Second, because before claiming that also, for example, disgust, 00:20:45.698 --> 00:20:51.018 it's mirror neurons, because when you stimulate desire, both in monkeys and humans, 00:20:51.278 --> 00:20:56.818 you have feeling of disgust, you can reach vomiting if you want. 00:20:57.458 --> 00:21:04.378 And so there is a motor program for that, which goes from insula probably to 00:21:04.378 --> 00:21:09.858 other subcortical center. and when arrive input from external person. 00:21:10.518 --> 00:21:13.778 Are we going to get to those, that data a little bit? 00:21:13.978 --> 00:21:18.518 No, I am very happy about this emotional stuff because it's easier to demonstrate. 00:21:20.638 --> 00:21:24.558 But this is really an important point because I could also say look, 00:21:24.678 --> 00:21:27.618 the brain is geared towards generating action, that's it. 00:21:27.738 --> 00:21:31.758 That's whatever it does under all conditions with or without mirror neurons. Right. 00:21:33.698 --> 00:21:39.138 So that would mean that That feature of being dependent on a motor program is 00:21:39.138 --> 00:21:43.178 nonspecific to the mirror neurons because everything depends on motor programs. 00:21:44.260 --> 00:21:49.060 Motor clover is the basis, yeah. That's true. But then the other thing is you 00:21:49.060 --> 00:21:50.840 show also from this data from Roger Lemon, 00:21:51.560 --> 00:21:55.720 that there appears to be, at least if you look at mirror neurons in the corticospinal 00:21:55.720 --> 00:21:58.680 tract, because that's what he documented, right, at the single cell level, 00:21:58.800 --> 00:22:02.280 there seems to be some competition between them because actually some mirror 00:22:02.280 --> 00:22:05.120 neurons are suppressing their response. 00:22:05.300 --> 00:22:11.160 Is that significant to you, the idea that there might be competition across mirror neuron systems? 00:22:11.660 --> 00:22:15.960 You know, when he described it, the moment I thought, well, great. 00:22:16.140 --> 00:22:17.980 So we have found a system. 00:22:18.300 --> 00:22:22.340 That's his idea. The whole group of London has this idea that it blocks. 00:22:22.600 --> 00:22:28.580 So when I see you doing something, I have the activity of the mirror neurons, 00:22:28.740 --> 00:22:32.180 but I don't repeat your action. So it should be a blocking mechanism. 00:22:32.460 --> 00:22:38.200 And maybe this lemon mechanism is part of it, but I don't One thing is the whole 00:22:38.200 --> 00:22:45.420 story, because there are some patients with lesion of the frontal lobe and they are unable to stop. 00:22:45.580 --> 00:22:49.760 So let's call it imitation behavior or utilization behavior. 00:22:50.100 --> 00:22:56.560 So the doctor put the glasses down and the patient take and put on his nose. 00:22:56.920 --> 00:23:01.320 So it means that it is a multiple control. 00:23:01.520 --> 00:23:05.900 I think the control of Roger Lemmon is the subtle control. When you're uncertain, 00:23:06.100 --> 00:23:07.420 do or not do, then stop it. 00:23:07.540 --> 00:23:11.760 But the big control is from prefrontal nerve. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, I get it. 00:23:12.140 --> 00:23:18.360 And you touched quite briefly on the ability now with imaging techniques to 00:23:18.360 --> 00:23:23.060 look more at the temporal structure or processing in these neurons. 00:23:23.680 --> 00:23:27.340 What is it that you think we can find out from this temporal profile? 00:23:30.680 --> 00:23:35.780 Well, it's difficult to say what, But certainly time is very important because 00:23:35.780 --> 00:23:40.080 you know, for example, in the case of tools that we have data, 00:23:40.540 --> 00:23:45.900 the people think the tools, you recognize the action together with your hand movement. 00:23:46.160 --> 00:23:51.980 Instead, after that, you first recognize somebody is grasping and then you know that it's tool. 00:23:53.420 --> 00:23:59.280 I suppose maybe it's some disease. It could be important that your timing is wrong. 00:24:01.760 --> 00:24:05.760 I don't know, I never thought how to demonstrate why time is important, 00:24:05.960 --> 00:24:09.460 because just the word, you know, we add time to space, seems great, 00:24:09.960 --> 00:24:15.400 so I have never thought of a peculiar, particular case in which time should be important. 00:24:15.700 --> 00:24:19.340 Well, we've been thinking about time a lot at this school, you know, 00:24:19.360 --> 00:24:23.420 and how timing relates to decisions and actions and so on. 00:24:23.500 --> 00:24:27.680 So it was interesting for me, and I think it relates maybe also to this goal-directedness, 00:24:27.680 --> 00:24:35.080 because if you can see peaks in this profile and match them maybe to some aha moment, you know, I... 00:24:35.870 --> 00:24:38.770 And then also, it might be interesting to look at ambiguous situations. 00:24:38.930 --> 00:24:43.450 So, if you're looking at the dog biting, does it take longer to see that? 00:24:43.470 --> 00:24:44.830 Why do you have to bring up the dog again, Tony? 00:24:45.490 --> 00:24:48.010 No, thank you very much. You are right. 00:24:49.190 --> 00:24:52.870 Decide the dog. But what he said, I think it's very important, 00:24:52.970 --> 00:24:58.930 is that we are very biased still to a kind of low-level motor system and so on. 00:24:58.930 --> 00:25:03.350 But the decision-making and so on. In this case, the time will be much more 00:25:03.350 --> 00:25:06.450 important than we can give you now as an example. 00:25:06.730 --> 00:25:12.470 But maybe you have this actually, this information, because if you measure from 00:25:12.470 --> 00:25:17.370 the sort of parietal frontal system and the motor cortex, 00:25:17.650 --> 00:25:23.250 you will see responses develop over time as the monkey is responding, right? 00:25:23.310 --> 00:25:27.470 So does it show any kind of temporal structuring of that response? 00:25:27.470 --> 00:25:32.090 Can we say we see a clear parietal frontal movement of neural activity, 00:25:32.410 --> 00:25:37.970 and then maybe we see again some top-down information going back to the parietal area? 00:25:38.070 --> 00:25:41.610 Is that a pattern that you would observe? That's something extremely interesting. 00:25:41.770 --> 00:25:45.970 But up to now, we just make very naive experiments. 00:25:46.210 --> 00:25:51.190 Just they observe an action. It would be interesting if they think about the 00:25:51.190 --> 00:25:53.750 intention, why he's doing that to eat. 00:25:53.970 --> 00:25:56.430 So we have to render a bit more complicated. 00:25:58.290 --> 00:26:03.250 But first, it was the beginning. The second, my co-worker was Georg Bonk, 00:26:03.250 --> 00:26:05.050 who is a visual physiologist. 00:26:05.170 --> 00:26:07.890 So he stressed that we have to study first vision. 00:26:08.750 --> 00:26:13.550 That's what happened. Right. But now, if we anchor it to intention… Yeah, 00:26:13.570 --> 00:26:15.110 that's just what I think. 00:26:15.290 --> 00:26:17.870 And you could also imagine that you then could have an experimental paradigm 00:26:18.270 --> 00:26:20.570 where the intention is actually changed. 00:26:20.690 --> 00:26:23.170 There's an ambiguity in the task, and first it appears to be, 00:26:23.230 --> 00:26:25.870 okay, I'm going for this object, but then I actually go for that one. 00:26:25.870 --> 00:26:33.030 Go for the microphone or for the cup where are you predicting that kind of intentional 00:26:33.030 --> 00:26:37.730 processing that happens where is this intention set in the brain. 00:26:38.859 --> 00:26:43.539 Well, my intention or others' intention, because... I guess from the mirror 00:26:43.539 --> 00:26:46.279 nerve perspective, first your own, and then the other, right? 00:26:46.539 --> 00:26:49.219 Well, for my intention, I think it's very important. 00:26:49.679 --> 00:26:55.899 It's the presupplementary motor cortex, RAFF, maybe also the cingulate, 00:26:55.959 --> 00:26:58.219 but then area on the mesial cortex. 00:26:58.759 --> 00:27:00.699 And it's also for... 00:27:01.319 --> 00:27:10.139 Well, you touched a good point. because Tillner in London made an experiment 00:27:10.139 --> 00:27:14.659 in which he replicated the readiness potential. 00:27:15.159 --> 00:27:18.459 Readiness potential appears when you are ready to do something. 00:27:18.839 --> 00:27:25.099 And then he asked people to observe another person and they can predict when 00:27:25.099 --> 00:27:26.199 they will do the movement. 00:27:26.339 --> 00:27:30.599 And they found readiness potential in the middle part of the brain. 00:27:30.639 --> 00:27:32.899 They don't know where because that's surface electrode. 00:27:33.179 --> 00:27:39.379 But so, it's true. It's true. It will be an experiment. 00:27:39.499 --> 00:27:42.439 Sometimes I forget to mention, but it's very good. 00:27:43.339 --> 00:27:48.379 Yes, I think, I mean, I'm imagining that you have multiple motor programs which 00:27:48.379 --> 00:27:53.079 can be activated when you start observing an action. 00:27:53.239 --> 00:27:57.639 And then these are competing to be the best match to what you're observing. 00:27:57.799 --> 00:28:00.779 And that you might see that in the temporal evolution of the activity. 00:28:01.299 --> 00:28:04.879 And that at some point you say, aha, he's going to bite the banana. 00:28:05.839 --> 00:28:07.539 Rather than shove it up his nose. 00:28:07.939 --> 00:28:11.779 Right. And so this would be a good way to get at the intention, maybe. 00:28:11.999 --> 00:28:19.339 Yeah, well, that's the idea of Friston, that our neurons actually are Bayesian predictors. 00:28:20.599 --> 00:28:25.219 But this is the point, how many actions we can predict. So you have to put some limit. 00:28:26.079 --> 00:28:31.299 Instead, my view is when I see an action, It's immediately activated the motor 00:28:31.299 --> 00:28:34.679 program corresponding, and so I don't need prediction. 00:28:34.839 --> 00:28:41.079 But I am very open. I think it's a very clever idea that mirror systems can act as a predictor. 00:28:41.803 --> 00:28:44.583 But there's something tricky in the background there, in my opinion, 00:28:44.603 --> 00:28:49.843 because if we talk about motor program and motor schema, it gives this idea 00:28:49.843 --> 00:28:52.103 of a very discretized action space. 00:28:53.163 --> 00:28:59.743 But given our morphology, given our skeletal muscle system, that space and the 00:28:59.743 --> 00:29:03.803 goals we can attain, it's basically an infinite space. 00:29:03.803 --> 00:29:08.123 Right so so how 00:29:08.123 --> 00:29:12.223 do you really see then this mirror neuron system develop 00:29:12.223 --> 00:29:16.523 into its response because i cannot either you have to say it's it's a library 00:29:16.523 --> 00:29:22.623 i have a huge set of possible motor programs that are linked to possible sensory 00:29:22.623 --> 00:29:27.783 states and goals that feed them and i choose from this long list which computationally 00:29:27.783 --> 00:29:31.803 is problematic in my opinion right so we have to think about a more 00:29:31.923 --> 00:29:35.763 dynamic solution to that motor space encoding. 00:29:36.123 --> 00:29:39.583 So how do you think about the motor space encoding in this context? 00:29:40.003 --> 00:29:46.723 Well, when we first discovered this property of motor cortex, 00:29:46.943 --> 00:29:52.423 I suggested that we have exactly a vocabulary of motor act, but only for the hand. 00:29:52.703 --> 00:29:56.203 So if you think in the monkey, there are not so many. 00:29:56.363 --> 00:30:00.103 They can grasp like that, grasp like that, push, and so on. 00:30:00.103 --> 00:30:05.443 If you increase and think about all the possible movements, I think it's more 00:30:05.443 --> 00:30:13.023 difficult for Friston because the system should predict, I don't know, how many actions. 00:30:13.223 --> 00:30:17.663 The only solution could be that context already cut some of them, 00:30:17.763 --> 00:30:21.503 and so of infinite they become a limited number. 00:30:21.723 --> 00:30:25.323 So I think the context is very important in deciding how many actions. 00:30:25.503 --> 00:30:27.743 So if I'm here, I'm not going to swim. 00:30:29.353 --> 00:30:33.093 I hope. No, this could actually happen, you know. 00:30:34.413 --> 00:30:41.433 So you're saying, okay, there are movement primitives at a relatively high level, 00:30:41.533 --> 00:30:46.753 like grasp, push, pinch, and so on. This is not such a huge set. 00:30:46.873 --> 00:30:54.513 But I'm not worried about their combinatorics, like reach, push, grasp. 00:30:55.013 --> 00:30:59.513 That's not my concern. I'm not going to worry about how I link them together, 00:30:59.653 --> 00:31:06.253 because within each of them, there's a goal and an action associated, if you want. Right. 00:31:06.673 --> 00:31:10.013 It's actually like a triad, right? There's a sensory state, a goal state, 00:31:10.113 --> 00:31:12.253 an action state, and this is now my primitive. 00:31:12.713 --> 00:31:14.513 And then this is my mirror primitive. 00:31:15.273 --> 00:31:21.113 My mirror primitive is grasping. But if you grasp to reach or to place, 00:31:21.333 --> 00:31:24.453 I think there are two primitives put together. It's not one. 00:31:24.733 --> 00:31:28.713 Okay. And that's how you assemble. Assemble your motor programs, if you want. 00:31:28.793 --> 00:31:34.053 Okay, and so the schema would act predicated on these discrete actions, 00:31:34.173 --> 00:31:36.153 like reach, grasp, point, whatever. 00:31:36.673 --> 00:31:41.533 My schema, but I suppose there are higher order schema for reach to grasp, 00:31:41.693 --> 00:31:43.953 reach to put, reach to throw, and so on. 00:31:44.073 --> 00:31:46.933 But then how does it scale to Tony's case, who actually can play guitar? 00:31:47.973 --> 00:31:52.333 Well, with guitar, the idea, it's not only mine, Ethologists also think that 00:31:52.333 --> 00:31:57.433 you somehow split what you observe in elements. 00:31:57.793 --> 00:32:02.893 You store this element and then prefrontal cortex put together this element 00:32:02.893 --> 00:32:06.013 in a new sequence, which is completely new. You don't know before. 00:32:06.493 --> 00:32:12.813 Okay, fine. But the granularity of now the action states might be very different 00:32:12.813 --> 00:32:14.713 from the granularity of the goal states. 00:32:14.813 --> 00:32:18.793 Because the goal is I want to play that chord, right? At the level of intention, 00:32:19.053 --> 00:32:21.033 I want to say I want to play a G major chord. 00:32:21.833 --> 00:32:26.853 But in terms of the action space, the granularity seems at a much lower level of resolution. 00:32:27.813 --> 00:32:32.533 Because I look at single digits and how I place them. So how would I bring that 00:32:32.533 --> 00:32:35.593 together with that goal of playing the G major chord? Right. 00:32:36.267 --> 00:32:42.067 Well, at the beginning, somebody has to teach you. At least you have a particular talent for music. 00:32:42.247 --> 00:32:47.587 But typically, I think you see the teacher, which is showing you how to put 00:32:47.587 --> 00:32:49.507 the finger, and you replicate. 00:32:50.147 --> 00:32:54.267 Okay. But also, I think your goal is also to make the sound. 00:32:54.427 --> 00:33:00.647 And when you're observing someone else playing the guitar, you would be listening 00:33:00.647 --> 00:33:03.107 for the sound and watching their fingers. 00:33:03.887 --> 00:33:08.187 But do you see the problem I'm after? Because first we agree there's some sort of triad. 00:33:08.267 --> 00:33:10.847 There's a perceptual state, there's a goal state, there's an action state. 00:33:11.047 --> 00:33:13.007 The action states are built on primitives. 00:33:13.287 --> 00:33:16.187 And then when I try to match that to the idea of playing a chord, 00:33:16.727 --> 00:33:22.087 your goal state is to reproduce a sound, right, or to play the label to G major. 00:33:22.767 --> 00:33:27.647 But now the way Giacomo described it is I'm going to assemble the chord from 00:33:27.647 --> 00:33:30.767 having a mirroring of single digit movement. 00:33:30.767 --> 00:33:35.147 Movement so now i have two levels of description and i have to link the lower 00:33:35.147 --> 00:33:39.127 level to the higher level so do you then just say okay i just percolate now 00:33:39.127 --> 00:33:44.327 that sound of the g major chord down towards a single digit movement so i have 00:33:44.327 --> 00:33:47.687 a hierarchy i have a hierarchical mirror encoding if you want, 00:33:48.347 --> 00:33:53.707 yeah or is something else going on that means i have sub goals that say this 00:33:53.707 --> 00:33:57.447 finger here well i mean people talk about chunking don't they in this situation 00:33:57.447 --> 00:34:01.607 so exactly so you assemble the whole g major caught as a chunk. 00:34:01.787 --> 00:34:04.307 So you're Giacomo's lawyer now. Well, no, but you've... 00:34:05.807 --> 00:34:11.167 He knows how to play guitar. I told you, I'm not very good at it, you know. 00:34:17.687 --> 00:34:23.467 Okay, so the other thing in terms of generality, you did this beautiful experiment 00:34:23.467 --> 00:34:28.247 where you actually not only used biological effectors, but also robotic effectors 00:34:28.247 --> 00:34:31.027 to see, does Does it generalize to tools? 00:34:31.267 --> 00:34:36.587 Does it generalize to, let's say, non-human, but maybe still anthropomorphic effectors? 00:34:36.627 --> 00:34:39.327 So how general is it? When does it break down? 00:34:39.547 --> 00:34:44.107 What kind of effector can I present to the monkey that's, if you want, 00:34:44.127 --> 00:34:46.407 at the threshold of still giving me a mirror response? 00:34:46.467 --> 00:34:49.767 No, no, no. We have to distinguish now monkey and humans. 00:34:50.047 --> 00:34:57.347 We did experiment with Gurbain and people in Leuven teaching the monkey to use 00:34:57.347 --> 00:35:03.727 a tool. What happens is that the circuit which is activated is just grasping. 00:35:04.147 --> 00:35:07.827 They know how to use the tool, but there is no human. 00:35:08.047 --> 00:35:12.087 They are probably the only creature which have in the parietal lobe an area 00:35:12.087 --> 00:35:15.127 which is really specific for tool. 00:35:15.407 --> 00:35:22.087 So even when the monkey is very fluent in using a rake, nothing happens in the brain. 00:35:22.227 --> 00:35:27.187 I don't know where it is raking, but probably it's together with the drastic movement. 00:35:27.427 --> 00:35:32.227 But this is counterintuitive, right? Because monkeys can be pretty proficient tool users. 00:35:32.667 --> 00:35:35.667 No, not so good. Like sticks? Not so good as we are. 00:35:36.574 --> 00:35:42.214 Maybe not so good as we are, but still. I don't need the lawyer here. Let them play guitar. 00:35:44.814 --> 00:35:49.514 They do it just in a different way. They play like Jimi Hendrix at the end of 00:35:49.514 --> 00:35:50.854 a concert, right? You just smash them. 00:35:53.374 --> 00:35:57.754 So you're saying, but then the human specialization for tool use, 00:35:57.994 --> 00:36:03.694 you would see as having, let's say, emerged or having differentiated from the 00:36:03.694 --> 00:36:06.554 general motor system as a specialization? 00:36:06.874 --> 00:36:10.994 I think so, but not because we have learned. I think it's evolutionary. 00:36:11.054 --> 00:36:11.974 It's a prior, yeah, right. 00:36:12.434 --> 00:36:16.334 Evolutionary, because it's only on the left side. It's not on the right side. Okay. 00:36:17.094 --> 00:36:20.354 In the monkey, there is nothing which is so strongly lateralized. 00:36:20.474 --> 00:36:23.154 It's like language, I think. Right. 00:36:24.294 --> 00:36:28.334 But do you also see that in this human specialization, is the way it innervates 00:36:28.334 --> 00:36:33.374 the periphery unique in any way? or the way it's linked to other neural systems 00:36:33.374 --> 00:36:34.574 and the way it works down? 00:36:34.654 --> 00:36:42.274 I think anatomically, it's very close to the region where you have movement of the fingers. 00:36:42.654 --> 00:36:49.754 Although when you use a tool, it's completely different way because your tool is solid stuff. 00:36:50.934 --> 00:36:54.634 For example, if you do an experiment, instead of using a rake, 00:36:54.694 --> 00:37:00.634 you take your hand and you use as a rake, you have an activity in the area of tools. 00:37:00.874 --> 00:37:04.994 So the tool is not considered a tool, but it's considered an instrument. 00:37:05.834 --> 00:37:13.174 Right. So, if we now think about language, I know it's a bit of a jump, 00:37:13.234 --> 00:37:17.374 okay, but still, we could think also about language in terms of actions. 00:37:17.474 --> 00:37:19.794 We have speech acts, we say words, right? 00:37:20.554 --> 00:37:25.214 Now, in a conversation, I might make predictions about the things you're going 00:37:25.214 --> 00:37:27.154 to say and what your goals are in saying that. 00:37:27.494 --> 00:37:32.014 So do you think as much if you have a tool specialization do you also see language 00:37:32.014 --> 00:37:35.794 production as a specialization of a mirror neuron like substrate? 00:37:36.134 --> 00:37:38.054 Or you see it as completely disconnected? 00:37:39.154 --> 00:37:47.314 Well you know with language we wrote some years ago 15 years ago a paper with Michael Arby which we. 00:37:48.655 --> 00:37:56.935 Which we claimed that at least Semantic we understand because it derives from gesture. 00:37:57.155 --> 00:38:02.615 Mm-hmm And the idea was that imagine grasping so I understand grasping but I 00:38:02.615 --> 00:38:08.095 think the word grasping No, the meaning why it's grasping and on something else. 00:38:08.415 --> 00:38:13.715 That's true for Semantic, I don't know anything about syntax syntax Syntax, 00:38:13.755 --> 00:38:17.535 I prefer not to speak because it's so complicated. 00:38:17.795 --> 00:38:23.475 I don't have any model of neurophysiological model on how we can explain the syntax. 00:38:23.815 --> 00:38:27.375 So here I am like Chomsky. Okay. Not for us. 00:38:27.575 --> 00:38:32.295 So now the last part of your talk, you showed these really exciting results 00:38:32.295 --> 00:38:37.415 that you were obtaining looking at humans who had intracranial recordings. 00:38:37.675 --> 00:38:44.275 So these were epilepsy patients with implanted electrodes. Why did you move 00:38:44.275 --> 00:38:47.695 in that direction because you were doing fMRI, you have the monkey model. 00:38:47.995 --> 00:38:51.995 Why was the intracranial patient for you so relevant and important? 00:38:52.935 --> 00:38:59.515 Well, I was really a bit disappointed in the last year with fMRI because I think 00:38:59.515 --> 00:39:05.755 fMRI at the beginning was extremely precious at the time when it was the beginning in London, 00:39:05.795 --> 00:39:08.335 in Montreal and so on. 00:39:08.395 --> 00:39:13.715 Every paper was something new. Then I think they feel almost finished. 00:39:13.895 --> 00:39:16.795 The people start to think about where is the gambling area? 00:39:17.075 --> 00:39:19.875 Where is the area for love of the mother? 00:39:20.275 --> 00:39:27.355 It became not science. And I discovered this recording from humans. 00:39:27.655 --> 00:39:32.055 I hoped to record also single neurons like they did in Los Angeles, 00:39:32.395 --> 00:39:39.235 Isaac Fried. But up to now, I am happy with the gamma-rhythm because gamma-rhythm 00:39:39.235 --> 00:39:42.615 is really very close to, it's much easier to manipulate. 00:39:43.315 --> 00:39:47.015 So what did you observe in this patient? So what you did, basically you have 00:39:47.015 --> 00:39:50.935 these implanted patients, you have many contacts. Yes. 00:39:51.824 --> 00:39:56.124 Over 100 per patient, 16 different electrodes. 00:39:57.464 --> 00:40:01.304 Of course, you cannot go at arbitrary locations in the brain because it's not 00:40:01.304 --> 00:40:03.464 clinically relevant, right? So there are some constraints. 00:40:03.744 --> 00:40:07.324 Of course. But then what you did, which I found really, really very exciting, 00:40:07.484 --> 00:40:13.424 is you started to sort of map mirror neuron paradigms to these patients, right? 00:40:13.464 --> 00:40:20.624 To look at how are these aspects of the sensory motor coupling or the intention 00:40:20.624 --> 00:40:25.464 coupling coded in the brains of these patients. 00:40:25.584 --> 00:40:28.624 So what are the main principles that you observe there? 00:40:29.444 --> 00:40:33.884 Well, there are two streams in this type of experiment. 00:40:34.284 --> 00:40:39.164 One is just based on something which is important for clinical purposes but 00:40:39.164 --> 00:40:41.364 has never been studied deeply. 00:40:41.804 --> 00:40:43.324 An example, pain. 00:40:43.924 --> 00:40:48.044 Most of people are convinced that they are center of pain in the cingulate. 00:40:48.504 --> 00:40:52.844 Wrong. You can stimulate cingulate, there is never pain. 00:40:53.284 --> 00:40:59.624 So what happens in the pain, what happens in the cingulate, it's probably the 00:40:59.624 --> 00:41:03.044 fear that something could happen bad. 00:41:03.244 --> 00:41:06.784 So you don't feel pain, but you say, I want to go away. 00:41:07.004 --> 00:41:09.524 You know, I am distressed. 00:41:09.804 --> 00:41:14.244 That's what happened in the cingulate. So that's something that you can learn by stimulation. 00:41:14.664 --> 00:41:16.404 The same is true for. 00:41:18.354 --> 00:41:23.574 For the insula. We have data from the monkey, but only the neurosurgeon can 00:41:23.574 --> 00:41:27.054 demonstrate that really the anterior insula is for disgust. 00:41:27.214 --> 00:41:32.134 And then I can construct my theory because otherwise we'll be only monkey on one side, human. 00:41:32.374 --> 00:41:39.714 That's one part of it that we are now working very hard because they have many, many data. 00:41:40.314 --> 00:41:43.434 Clinicians do it for critical purposes. They stimulate many, 00:41:43.434 --> 00:41:46.254 many points in the brain, and they store it. 00:41:46.514 --> 00:41:53.974 The only point to send is to take away and to analyze it. The second is to make an experiment. 00:41:54.254 --> 00:41:59.574 And up to now, I must confess he's right, our fantasy was not very big because 00:41:59.574 --> 00:42:05.134 we just replicate a tool instead will be much more interesting for time to see 00:42:05.134 --> 00:42:10.494 decision taking or uncertainty and so on. 00:42:10.554 --> 00:42:14.874 So to go a bit higher in the nervous system functions. 00:42:16.214 --> 00:42:19.774 So what you focused on was the insula. 00:42:20.654 --> 00:42:24.054 You know, we have also to publish. I have young people with me, 00:42:24.114 --> 00:42:27.694 so they cannot wait two years, three years, the tower test is finished. 00:42:27.894 --> 00:42:30.214 They say, listen, professor, we have insula. 00:42:31.154 --> 00:42:35.374 Why we don't publish it right away? That's the truth. 00:42:35.474 --> 00:42:39.874 But also in the monkey, and you sort of confirmed in the human, 00:42:40.074 --> 00:42:45.354 you saw, okay, the insula is like, A part of insula, only the rostral part of 00:42:45.354 --> 00:42:46.654 the insula. Okay, rostral part of insula. 00:42:47.394 --> 00:42:53.574 It's like valence encoded relative to ingestive actions. Exactly. Right? 00:42:54.854 --> 00:42:58.754 Excellent definition. Humans and mercado. The same in humans and mercado. Okay. 00:42:59.154 --> 00:43:05.174 But now, to what extent should I think about that in mirroring terms? 00:43:05.394 --> 00:43:10.714 Because I could also say, well, this is just a higher level representation of a very simple... 00:43:11.710 --> 00:43:15.050 Emotional triggered disgust circuit 00:43:15.050 --> 00:43:18.030 but I'm not mirroring this to the other why 00:43:18.030 --> 00:43:20.750 why can we say now in this case that there is a 00:43:20.750 --> 00:43:26.030 mirroring component to it because fmri experiment indicated the same voxel are 00:43:26.030 --> 00:43:30.410 activated in both cases right so when you have natural stimulus or when you 00:43:30.410 --> 00:43:35.370 observe so it is overlap but between this case it's overlap yeah factory driven 00:43:35.370 --> 00:43:38.790 disgust and And a visually observed disgust and other. 00:43:38.970 --> 00:43:42.650 Real disgust. I don't know about moral disgust because the people claim that 00:43:42.650 --> 00:43:45.150 also that's not my field. 00:43:45.410 --> 00:43:49.450 Well, that's something else that we can also talk about maybe a little bit later, right? 00:43:49.490 --> 00:43:55.870 Because mirror neurons had quite an impact on the field and many people had 00:43:55.870 --> 00:43:59.430 the wildest of imaginations what mirror neurons could do. Too much. 00:44:00.270 --> 00:44:07.010 Right. So do you feel that that has also maybe impeded a little the progress, 00:44:07.270 --> 00:44:08.490 these over-interpretations? 00:44:08.870 --> 00:44:13.610 No, not the progress. But, you know, I am sometimes surprised because, 00:44:13.870 --> 00:44:19.950 for example, for many years I have been asking, but maybe mirror neurons are only in the monkey. 00:44:20.230 --> 00:44:23.510 But they said, but human envisage is never recorded from humans. 00:44:23.670 --> 00:44:29.770 And everybody believes it. The simple, complex, hyper-complex neurons are there. 00:44:29.770 --> 00:44:32.530 And look at the hippocampus. 00:44:32.590 --> 00:44:38.190 The hippocampus is a wonderful work that they did, O'Keeffe and Moselle, in Rhodes. 00:44:38.790 --> 00:44:43.630 And nobody asked. I don't know why, but the mirror triggered something that 00:44:43.630 --> 00:44:45.730 we are entering into sociology. 00:44:46.370 --> 00:44:50.090 Well, maybe we should push back and say maybe there are no play cells in the human brain. 00:44:51.050 --> 00:44:54.690 Yes, but you believe it. Sure we do. You do? 00:44:56.930 --> 00:45:03.190 Your study sort of showed that some of the insular neurons would respond for 00:45:03.190 --> 00:45:07.430 seeing somebody with an expression of disgust. 00:45:07.630 --> 00:45:12.890 Others would respond to the smell, a disgusting odorant. 00:45:13.610 --> 00:45:17.050 And then a subset of neurons would respond to both. 00:45:17.810 --> 00:45:21.410 So it's that subset that you're describing as the mirror cells in that case? 00:45:21.650 --> 00:45:25.910 I know only from fMRI that the same voxels. Okay, the voxels. 00:45:25.910 --> 00:45:31.790 So I suppose that in voxels there are mirror neurons, but I have never recorded single neurons. 00:45:32.030 --> 00:45:36.170 Okay, but there's a part of the insula which you think is particularly… But 00:45:36.170 --> 00:45:38.990 at this point, everybody seems to believe that since it's the same voxel, 00:45:39.090 --> 00:45:41.670 it should be a population of neurons which are mirror. 00:45:42.430 --> 00:45:49.230 Right. But the point is that it's actually in the images that you showed, 00:45:49.330 --> 00:45:53.710 it was quite a small and specific area that had these voxels. 00:45:53.710 --> 00:45:59.470 And so there's a small area of ventrila which has mirror neurons, is what you're saying. 00:46:00.458 --> 00:46:06.278 Or mirror neurons for disgust. Again, since we know only the voxels, 00:46:06.318 --> 00:46:07.738 we don't know how many neurons are there. 00:46:08.338 --> 00:46:13.078 It seems to be small areas, you're right. And is that small area, 00:46:13.158 --> 00:46:15.118 is it the same small area across subjects? 00:46:16.318 --> 00:46:23.178 Again, we have only an average. That's a point which we can now study in humans. 00:46:23.178 --> 00:46:28.478 The humans, I mean, with stereo-AG, not with fMRI. 00:46:28.798 --> 00:46:32.998 But are you now also bringing these paradigms to your intracranial patients, 00:46:33.218 --> 00:46:35.898 the disgust experiment you're going to do, or you are doing already? 00:46:36.078 --> 00:46:41.898 No, disgust, no. But fortunately, disgust, I mean, they stimulate the insula 00:46:41.898 --> 00:46:44.798 because often they are epileptic. 00:46:45.218 --> 00:46:49.138 But they don't go, unfortunately, so far anterior. 00:46:49.638 --> 00:46:52.798 It's more in the center of the insula, even the posterior part. 00:46:53.018 --> 00:46:55.178 So the data on this is very little. 00:46:55.618 --> 00:47:01.118 But the people in France, in Lyon, stimulated the insula several times, 00:47:01.218 --> 00:47:02.778 and they have disgust. Right. 00:47:02.918 --> 00:47:05.598 But it's more fun to do laughter, I think, is the answer. 00:47:06.618 --> 00:47:09.898 Exactly. When you could choose disgust or laughter, which would you choose? 00:47:10.698 --> 00:47:15.198 That's a good point, because that's what you show, that the cingulate cortex, 00:47:15.918 --> 00:47:19.678 would be more specialized for laughter. Only a small part of it. 00:47:20.938 --> 00:47:25.238 Yeah, but how should we really interpret that? 00:47:25.298 --> 00:47:29.058 This is so confusing to me. Let's say... Why? 00:47:30.218 --> 00:47:36.578 Let me tell you. He's a simple man. I can see his getuping. Yeah, exactly. 00:47:38.478 --> 00:47:46.418 So the point is that we find these voxels, so rather localized response contrasts, 00:47:46.418 --> 00:47:50.618 right, for disgust in humans, or now for laughter. 00:47:50.818 --> 00:47:55.038 So that means now I see a laughing face, I'm responding to that, 00:47:55.138 --> 00:47:59.418 and what you showed us, which is really fascinating, you show an increased neural 00:47:59.418 --> 00:48:01.618 activation in the cingulate cortex. 00:48:02.218 --> 00:48:04.418 What worries me about it is that, 00:48:05.913 --> 00:48:10.933 It seems to tell us that of all these possible combinations of internal valence 00:48:10.933 --> 00:48:15.033 states and behaviors and goals, you get very localized response. 00:48:15.153 --> 00:48:22.193 You have some sort of grandmother cells of, let's say, this coupling of affective 00:48:22.193 --> 00:48:24.913 states in a social context, right? 00:48:24.973 --> 00:48:29.793 The mirroring of affective states and sort of having grandmother cells that encode them. 00:48:29.793 --> 00:48:34.413 And what I find annoying about that is that it also pulls away from your earlier 00:48:34.413 --> 00:48:39.833 idea that the mirror neurons are actually a circuit property of a parietal frontal 00:48:39.833 --> 00:48:43.573 system, right? So how do you bring these two things together? 00:48:44.913 --> 00:48:50.853 Well, I think what happens in the cingulate, it receives input from outside 00:48:50.853 --> 00:48:56.533 and it sends information down because in order to laugh. 00:48:56.533 --> 00:48:59.793 And you see this laughing was very complicated movement of... 00:48:59.793 --> 00:49:06.413 So I think there are many output going down, which trigger center in the... 00:49:06.413 --> 00:49:11.393 Especially in the periaqueductal gray, and so it determine. 00:49:11.773 --> 00:49:18.113 So really that's the master, but then the whole action, it's very complicated, I think, by many center. 00:49:18.333 --> 00:49:22.333 It's not going down to hand and to fascia nervosa. 00:49:23.013 --> 00:49:28.413 But then there's another circuit on top of that, that fMRI doesn't allow you 00:49:28.413 --> 00:49:32.313 to visualize, because, of course, we're looking at really long time constants, right? 00:49:32.593 --> 00:49:37.733 You know, with a point which I have not discussed, but with fMRI there is another point. 00:49:37.973 --> 00:49:46.973 Imagine that you have a very weak activation, and the activation could go under 00:49:46.973 --> 00:49:48.633 the threshold that you don't detect. 00:49:48.833 --> 00:49:55.553 Instead, with this system, you detect. I mean, when we use fMRI, 00:49:55.733 --> 00:49:57.813 we use seconds, not milliseconds. 00:49:58.173 --> 00:50:02.073 So if you have activation of some milliseconds, and then it vanishes, 00:50:02.353 --> 00:50:04.733 you are lost. You said there is no such an activation. 00:50:04.893 --> 00:50:12.593 So it's not, I show as similar thing, but it was a bit a trick for a student because it's not true. 00:50:12.693 --> 00:50:14.333 It's not completely natural. But it's extremely interesting, 00:50:14.493 --> 00:50:16.813 right? Because you also showed in your intracranial patients, 00:50:16.973 --> 00:50:19.213 the action sits in high gamma. 00:50:20.373 --> 00:50:26.653 So can we be confident that you will see these high gamma events back in your fMRI as well? 00:50:28.374 --> 00:50:34.974 Well, there is an experiment done by Christian Kaiser who recorded not intracranially, 00:50:35.014 --> 00:50:37.734 but EEG and fMRI simultaneously. 00:50:38.774 --> 00:50:42.334 And when you have an activation in correspondence of the motor cortex, 00:50:42.454 --> 00:50:46.174 you have the synchronization. So, in other words, it's gamma. 00:50:46.574 --> 00:50:48.494 Gamma filtering, but anyway, it's gamma. 00:50:48.914 --> 00:50:54.014 But is it significant for you that these events that you pulled out in intracranial 00:50:54.014 --> 00:50:56.534 patients was mainly playing out in high gamma? 00:50:57.274 --> 00:51:01.854 Or because I asked you earlier about the patterning of the monkey response in 00:51:01.854 --> 00:51:05.014 the mirror neurons and you felt, well, there was nothing really special about it. 00:51:05.054 --> 00:51:08.554 We had some rate fluctuations that correlated with the task. 00:51:08.674 --> 00:51:13.754 But now when you bring it to the human brain, it's for now, okay, 00:51:13.814 --> 00:51:17.534 you look at the LFP, you look at the power spectrum, but the main impact is 00:51:17.534 --> 00:51:19.434 not at some slowly fluctuating signal. 00:51:19.834 --> 00:51:23.534 You look really at the power in the high frequency signal. In the high frequency 00:51:23.534 --> 00:51:26.154 and synchronize it with the signal. Right. 00:51:26.534 --> 00:51:31.174 Which in some sense is a somewhat different mode of analyzing the data as you 00:51:31.174 --> 00:51:34.374 originally did with the macaque monkeys, right? To establish the mirror neurons. 00:51:36.054 --> 00:51:42.834 In a sense, it's true. I hope that I will be able to record single neurons in the future. 00:51:42.934 --> 00:51:47.154 But at the moment, that's the best I can have. But it's not a criticism because 00:51:47.154 --> 00:51:52.794 maybe it's also exciting because maybe why not believe that the human brain 00:51:52.794 --> 00:52:00.454 is again using a somewhat more sophisticated coding scheme to build these kinds of circuits, right? 00:52:00.534 --> 00:52:05.634 That we go away from simple rates, that we move into a higher dimensional space 00:52:05.634 --> 00:52:11.134 of, let's say, frequency, high gamma, phase coupling, or that you don't find 00:52:11.134 --> 00:52:13.954 an appealing alternative. No, I think it's very interesting what you're saying. 00:52:14.114 --> 00:52:18.874 Because historically, we started with anatomy and with lesion. 00:52:18.874 --> 00:52:22.154 We said, here is visual area, here is motor area. We knew nothing. 00:52:22.534 --> 00:52:27.454 Then with human vision, Moncasse and so on, we started to know something about the mechanism. 00:52:27.914 --> 00:52:32.794 Then fMRI, no mechanism anymore. Again, here is vision, here is motor. 00:52:34.014 --> 00:52:36.854 And now we're right. Maybe we are back now. 00:52:38.691 --> 00:52:42.731 Learn something about the mechanism, but maybe in a more sophisticated way. 00:52:42.891 --> 00:52:45.591 Exactly. That's a single neuron with one tungsten electrode. 00:52:46.231 --> 00:52:48.771 That's right, exactly. That may be, you're absolutely right. 00:52:48.931 --> 00:52:51.511 That could be something more than time. That's right. 00:52:51.631 --> 00:52:54.731 So I think it's a great opportunity that you now opened that door. 00:52:55.191 --> 00:52:59.111 And it actually also consists of what we see in our intracranial patients in very different tasks. 00:52:59.631 --> 00:53:04.291 You have? You record intracranial? Yeah, we do. And in rate, we don't see very much. 00:53:04.471 --> 00:53:08.631 We see a lot in high gamma, in phase coupling. And so we use more virtual reality 00:53:08.631 --> 00:53:13.391 tasks, navigations, decision-making, and so on. So it's something else we should talk about. 00:53:13.471 --> 00:53:17.431 So when I will come next time, only for scientific purposes, 00:53:17.671 --> 00:53:20.571 you will show me. Absolutely. We'll show you everything. 00:53:21.191 --> 00:53:24.491 Okay. Listen, I have to go. I know. No, we have to finish up. 00:53:24.491 --> 00:53:26.791 I have this girl from Madrid. Okay. 00:53:27.791 --> 00:53:30.471 We will make sure you have enough time for the girl from Madrid. 00:53:30.691 --> 00:53:32.411 So let's go to the finish line. 00:53:32.551 --> 00:53:36.711 We're almost there. The girl from Madrid sounds great. She sounds very excited. 00:53:39.111 --> 00:53:44.551 We did not provide as part of this of this arrangement that I have to just declare 00:53:44.551 --> 00:53:49.691 that before people get the wrong idea Tony so the I think one of the, 00:53:51.006 --> 00:53:55.966 The most striking part of the talk was when you moved from talking about this 00:53:55.966 --> 00:54:03.306 activity as describing a response to a movement or a visual perception, 00:54:03.506 --> 00:54:08.166 and you began to say, well, this actually is the basis for empathy. 00:54:08.926 --> 00:54:13.826 So the human response where we see someone's pain and we share it, 00:54:13.866 --> 00:54:17.006 and we share it because we see the expression on their face or we hear their 00:54:17.006 --> 00:54:21.066 cry or whatever. So, I mean, that's fascinating. 00:54:21.286 --> 00:54:25.666 And I think you've presented some quite compelling arguments as to why we should think that. 00:54:25.746 --> 00:54:31.146 And you also said, Dan, that in some cases it appeared that that empathic response 00:54:31.146 --> 00:54:34.686 might, well, it is learned or some aspects of it are learned. 00:54:34.686 --> 00:54:39.406 And there could be some level of voluntary control, or in some people that it's 00:54:39.406 --> 00:54:40.566 not enabled or disabled. 00:54:40.766 --> 00:54:47.586 Could you say a bit more about what you think is the variation between people 00:54:47.586 --> 00:54:51.606 with respect to this empathic capability and how we can understand it? 00:54:53.886 --> 00:54:57.246 It's difficult to give you a scientific answer 00:54:57.246 --> 00:55:01.206 in the sense that I don't have a patient or 00:55:01.206 --> 00:55:04.106 people which is highly empathic or no 00:55:04.106 --> 00:55:07.166 empathic and so I don't know that but if 00:55:07.166 --> 00:55:10.526 you think about history and also 00:55:10.526 --> 00:55:13.326 also about some experiment because that woman 00:55:13.326 --> 00:55:17.186 for example are more empathic that's clear that's London 00:55:17.186 --> 00:55:24.606 as I told the student they use only girl never male for that but if you think 00:55:24.606 --> 00:55:29.086 on the logic it's more a logic experiment not scientific experiment if you have 00:55:29.086 --> 00:55:34.046 a mechanism which renders you empathic towards somebody. And this mechanism is destroyed. 00:55:34.406 --> 00:55:40.166 What will be your behavior? You will consider this person, it's not a person anymore. 00:55:40.446 --> 00:55:44.806 It's a thing. It's untermenschen. Untermenschen means it's not real. 00:55:44.926 --> 00:55:48.086 It's something below in evolution. In evolution. 00:55:49.656 --> 00:55:56.196 So at this point, it seems logical that you can behave in a nasty way. 00:55:56.336 --> 00:56:02.616 Because, you know, this, I don't know, you probably read or know about the Arendt, 00:56:02.676 --> 00:56:05.776 Hannah Arendt, she wrote the book about Eichmann process. 00:56:06.636 --> 00:56:10.596 And all the psychiatrists said that Eichmann, it's a good man. 00:56:10.896 --> 00:56:13.836 He likes his wife. He likes the children. 00:56:14.136 --> 00:56:17.716 He's a good citizen. So well expected, a monster. 00:56:18.396 --> 00:56:23.316 Instead, it turned out that it was a really normal person who simply obeyed 00:56:23.316 --> 00:56:25.816 the order without thinking about that. 00:56:26.036 --> 00:56:30.916 As she said at the beginning that, as a matter of fact, I like a Jewish, 00:56:31.036 --> 00:56:33.016 I have some friends, but why obey that? 00:56:33.176 --> 00:56:38.996 Well, because I am a person who obeyed the order and I am an important functionary 00:56:38.996 --> 00:56:42.196 in the German government or German administration. 00:56:42.196 --> 00:56:48.036 So, at a certain point, if you lose the feel that what you're doing is something 00:56:48.036 --> 00:56:53.596 against a human being, why not be a good administrator? 00:56:53.976 --> 00:56:57.896 Just organize the transport of Jews from one camp to another. 00:56:58.396 --> 00:57:04.356 So there will be in some people, or maybe in all of us, the ability to control 00:57:04.356 --> 00:57:08.156 the degree of empathy, maybe to shut down some of the system. 00:57:08.156 --> 00:57:13.756 Well, that's not my idea, but it's one of my friend philosophers that's really 00:57:13.756 --> 00:57:15.736 derived, in Germany especially, 00:57:16.056 --> 00:57:23.016 from the philosophy of Hegel, who thinks that we are just something very small. 00:57:23.196 --> 00:57:24.616 The important is the state. 00:57:24.856 --> 00:57:29.216 The state is really the entity which we have to obey and so on. 00:57:29.216 --> 00:57:34.996 If you think of Hegelian philosophy, maybe many Germans really feel that state 00:57:34.996 --> 00:57:37.236 is much more important than individual. 00:57:37.656 --> 00:57:41.316 So we have to help the right to become important. 00:57:41.736 --> 00:57:45.756 That's, again, more speculation, but it makes sense. Because, 00:57:45.756 --> 00:57:48.856 for example, in England, you have not this tradition. 00:57:49.756 --> 00:57:54.756 It's more empiricist, it's more individualistic, if you read Adam Smith or the 00:57:54.756 --> 00:57:59.596 other. In Germany, there is this big tradition of Hegel, which, again, 00:58:00.738 --> 00:58:05.298 That's not Miles' film, so they've told me. Think also about the Marxists. 00:58:05.638 --> 00:58:10.678 Marxists was considered the left wing of Hegel, the left Hegelism. 00:58:10.858 --> 00:58:13.438 And again, the state is the most important thing. 00:58:13.638 --> 00:58:18.478 One started killing the people. It was bad. But let's not forget that the Brits, 00:58:18.478 --> 00:58:21.918 like the Dutch, had their own big empires where they also killed plenty of people. 00:58:22.818 --> 00:58:26.918 So Aaron talked about the banality of evil in the argument in your personal 00:58:26.918 --> 00:58:31.738 book. And what's really important about that is that what we consider evil can 00:58:31.738 --> 00:58:34.458 be in some sense a normality dependent on the context. 00:58:34.598 --> 00:58:39.618 And there might be a more biological route to that, which might also go back to the work by Francois, 00:58:39.818 --> 00:58:43.618 for instance, on, let's say, the morality of bonobos and chimpanzees, 00:58:43.618 --> 00:58:49.658 where this whole idea of us and them is a very important construct to build 00:58:49.658 --> 00:58:51.378 social cohesion in groups, right? 00:58:51.378 --> 00:58:56.678 You also define the cohesion of a group by pointing out what is not the group, and that is them. 00:58:56.998 --> 00:59:02.458 So in that sense, this idea of being able to either empathize or not empathize 00:59:02.458 --> 00:59:05.778 can also play a constructive role in defining groups. 00:59:06.138 --> 00:59:12.098 But the thing is, it can become a runaway morality that the other now must be 00:59:12.098 --> 00:59:14.658 destroyed to sort of maintain the in-group. 00:59:14.658 --> 00:59:18.758 But that's not a bit the question, but if you compare the macaque brain and 00:59:18.758 --> 00:59:23.078 the human brain, in your experience, would the human brain have more capability 00:59:23.078 --> 00:59:28.338 to overwrite, if you want, these rules of empathy than the macaque brain? 00:59:28.458 --> 00:59:31.538 Is that also what makes us so powerful and so dangerous? 00:59:32.358 --> 00:59:36.718 You are absolutely right. I heard Tomasello talking about that, 00:59:36.818 --> 00:59:41.858 and he said something very similar to what you said. So human brain could be 00:59:41.858 --> 00:59:45.918 override an excess of people coming from outside. 00:59:46.118 --> 00:59:50.698 So he was very cautious. It's true. We have to consider all immigrants, 00:59:50.898 --> 00:59:51.878 all people as ourselves. 00:59:52.158 --> 00:59:54.538 But be careful because there is a mechanism. 00:59:55.278 --> 01:00:00.558 One mechanism says, which I like very much, that we are empathic towards other people. 01:00:00.658 --> 01:00:04.418 But there is also mechanism that when this number grow up. 01:00:05.870 --> 01:00:09.230 The idea is that you have to defend your tribe somehow. 01:00:09.570 --> 01:00:12.430 But don't forget, empathy is also overrated in some sense, right? 01:00:12.490 --> 01:00:18.510 Because even if I face my enemy, it is by virtue of me being empathic to my 01:00:18.510 --> 01:00:21.210 enemy that I can defeat him or her, right? 01:00:21.890 --> 01:00:27.130 So empathy is just my ability to model the other, not necessarily to sympathize 01:00:27.130 --> 01:00:28.410 with the other. Absolutely, absolutely. 01:00:28.830 --> 01:00:34.050 That should be clear to everybody because otherwise there is a lot of confusion. Exactly, right. Right. 01:00:35.130 --> 01:00:42.830 So then, okay, so you're in this business for a long time. You're in Parma for many years. 01:00:42.930 --> 01:00:45.350 We calculated 45 years, right? 40 years. 01:00:46.210 --> 01:00:49.950 So you've seen a lot in neuroscience. You also led to a revolution in neuroscience 01:00:49.950 --> 01:00:54.470 with all the positive and negative fallout that that brings about, right? Right? 01:00:56.430 --> 01:01:02.010 So, given that experience, what is Giacomo's law that we should adhere to to 01:01:02.010 --> 01:01:04.570 advance our understanding of the brain and the human condition? 01:01:05.270 --> 01:01:08.410 Don't forget about cognitive and system neuroscience. 01:01:08.870 --> 01:01:14.550 Because now I think the strong tendency is just to look how it's organized the 01:01:14.550 --> 01:01:20.690 visual cortex, the molecular level in a mole, which is blind. 01:01:24.590 --> 01:01:32.930 Okay, no more moles. And then my last question is, so Tony likes traveling, 01:01:33.010 --> 01:01:34.830 and he likes food as well. 01:01:35.830 --> 01:01:38.930 So it'll be a good restaurant. I've never been to Parma. 01:01:39.230 --> 01:01:42.950 Exactly. Oh, you must come. We're going to send Tony to Parma five years from 01:01:42.950 --> 01:01:44.490 now, but he's going to pay himself. 01:01:45.730 --> 01:01:49.690 And because he's going to come and check whether a prediction you're going to 01:01:49.690 --> 01:01:54.350 make today was falsified or verified. So, what's the one prediction that you 01:01:54.350 --> 01:01:58.950 would like to see sort of tested in that five-year time frame? 01:02:00.030 --> 01:02:04.690 Well, the idea that the brain is really have molded inside, say. 01:02:04.770 --> 01:02:06.070 It's not empiric system. 01:02:07.190 --> 01:02:10.670 Okay. So, Giacomo Rizzolatti, thank you very much for this conversation. 01:02:10.810 --> 01:02:12.310 Thank you. It was very pleasant. 01:02:16.130 --> 01:02:21.990 The CSN podcast was produced by the Convergent Science Network of Biometrics 01:02:21.990 --> 01:02:28.750 and Biohybrid Systems, a project funded by the European 7th Research Framework Programme. 01:02:29.930 --> 01:02:35.270 For more interviews, recorded lectures or upcoming conferences in the field 01:02:35.270 --> 01:02:41.510 of biometrics and biohybrid systems, go to csnnetwork.eu. 01:02:41.840 --> 01:02:50.000 Music.