Greetings All, 

I enjoyed reading Pat and Nikki's posts on the importance of observing breastfeeding dyads.  In my own case, I had not seen one instance of human breastfeeding while growing up in a small West Virginia town, as my mother and her peers were diligently following the medical recommendations of that era in the U.S. to bottle-feed formula to their children.  

Years later, as a young expectant mother attending a childbirth class, I listened carefully as the childbirth educator strongly encouraged us to attend a La Leche League meeting, where - - at last - - I observed human nursing dyads.  Prior to this, I had spent many hours in my youth at the side of animals nursing their young, which was also very instructive to me.   Without that LLL meeting, my only live breastfeeding instruction would have been from our animal companions and the animals on my grandparents' farm.  

Mirror neurons are activated when we actively execute a task, as well as when we observe another individual's performance.  We routinely provide verbal and visual guidance during prenatal breastfeeding classes by providing print information as well as video content, engaging our own mirror neurons as well as the attendees' mirror neurons.  After the baby's birth, we are often consulted to provide visual, verbal, and manual guidance to the nursing dyad for feeding, although the guidance can only be manual in the infant's case, who is preverbal or prelinguistic (borrowing terminology from developmental science).   

It's a delightful experience to observe a parent holding their alert baby en face.  When the parent makes an "O" shape with their mouth, and this is followed by the observant baby who mirrors the parent's behavior by similarly making an "O" shape with their tiny mouth, surely there are many mirror neurons firing in the brains of both members of the dyad.   However, we would not expect a baby to understand the meaning of a teaching video on positioning and latch, nor would we expect the newborn to learn how to latch by observing another newborn doing so.   The primitive survival reflexes are a profound support system for the newborn who is learning how to feed.  

Some new papers on mirror neurons:

Title:  Your Face and Moves Seem Happier When I Smile.

In:  Experimental Psychology 2020 Jan;67(1):14-22. doi: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000470. Epub 2020 May 11.

Authors:  Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos, Aiko Murata, Kyoshiro Sasaki, Yuki Yamada, Ayumi Ikeda, José A Hinojosa, Katsumi Watanabe, Michal Parzuchowski, Carlos Tirado, Raydonal Ospina.

Abstract:  "In this experiment, we replicated the effect of muscle engagement on perception such that the recognition of another's facial expressions was biased by the observer's facial muscular activity (Blaesi & Wilson, 2010). We extended this replication to show that such a modulatory effect is also observed for the recognition of dynamic bodily expressions. Via a multilab and within-subjects approach, we investigated the emotion recognition of point-light biological walkers, along with that of morphed face stimuli, while subjects were or were not holding a pen in their teeth. Under the "pen-in-the-teeth" condition, participants tended to lower their threshold of perception of happy expressions in facial stimuli compared to the "no-pen" condition, thus replicating the experiment by Blaesi and Wilson (2010). A similar effect was found for the biological motion stimuli such that participants lowered their threshold to perceive happy walkers in the pen-in-the-teeth condition compared to the no-pen condition. This pattern of results was also found in a second experiment in which the no-pen condition was replaced by a situation in which participants held a pen in their lips ("pen-in-lips" condition). These results suggested that facial muscular activity alters the recognition of not only facial expressions but also bodily expressions.  Keywords: biological motion; embodied cognition; emotions; face; mirror neurons."

Abstract only:  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32394814/


Title:  Movement Initiation and Grasp Representation in Premotor and Primary Motor Cortex Mirror Neurons.

In:  Elife 2020 Jul 6;9:e54139. doi: 10.7554/eLife.54139. Online ahead of print.

Authors:  Steven Jack Jerjian, Maneesh Sahani, Alexander Kraskov.

Abstract:  "Pyramidal tract neurons (PTNs) within macaque rostral ventral premotor cortex (F5) and primary motor cortex (M1) provide direct input to spinal circuitry and are critical for skilled movement control. Contrary to initial hypotheses, they can also be active during action observation, in the absence of any movement. A population-level understanding of this phenomenon is currently lacking. We recorded from single neurons, including identified PTNs, in M1 (n=187), and area F5 (n=115) as two adult male macaques executed, observed, or withheld (NoGo) reach-to-grasp actions. F5 maintained a similar representation of grasping actions during both execution and observation. In contrast, although many individual M1 neurons were active during observation, M1 population activity was distinct from execution, and more closely aligned to NoGo activity, suggesting this activity contributes to withholding of self-movement. M1 and its outputs may dissociate the initiation of movement from the representation of grasp in order to flexibly guide behaviour."

Abstract only:  https://elifesciences.org/articles/54139


Title:  A Sensorimotor Control Framework for Understanding Emotional Communication and Regulation.

In:  Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 2020 May;112:503-518. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.02.014. Epub 2020 Feb 15.

Authors:  Justin H G Williams, Charlotte F Huggins, Barbra Zupan, Megan Willis, Tamsyn E Van Rheenen, Wataru Sato, Romina Palermo, Catherine Ortner, Martin Krippl, Mariska Kret, Joanne M Dickson, Chiang-Shan R Li, Leroy Lowe.

Abstract:  "Our research team was asked to consider the relationship of the neuroscience of sensorimotor control to the language of emotions and feelings. Actions are the principal means for the communication of emotions and feelings in both humans and other animals, and the allostatic mechanisms controlling action also apply to the regulation of emotional states by the self and others. We consider how motor control of hierarchically organised, feedback-based, goal-directed action has evolved in humans, within a context of consciousness, appraisal and cultural learning, to serve emotions and feelings. In our linguistic analysis, we found that many emotion and feelings words could be assigned to stages in the sensorimotor learning process, but the assignment was often arbitrary. The embodied nature of emotional communication means that action words are frequently used, but that the meanings or senses of the word depend on its contextual use, just as the relationship of an action to an emotion is also contextually dependent.  Keywords: Action; Cognitive appraisal; Embodied cognition; Emotion; Emotion regulation; Facial expression; Feeling; Linguistics; Mirror neurons; Planning; Sensorimotor; motor."

Open access:  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763418309758?via%3Dihub


Title:  I'll Cry Instead: Mu Suppression Responses to Tearful Facial Expressions.

In:  Neuropsychologia 2020 Jun;143:107490. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107490. Epub 2020 May 5.

Authors:  Sarah J Krivan, Nerina Caltabiano, David Cottrell, Nicole A Thomas.

Abstract:  "Tears are a facial expression of emotion that readily elicit empathic responses from observers. It is currently unknown whether these empathic responses to tears are influenced by specific neural substrates. The EEG mu rhythm is one method of investigating the human mirror neuron system, purported to underlie the sharing of affective states and a facilitator of social cognition. The purpose of this research was to explore the mu response to tearful expressions of emotion. Sixty-eight participants viewed happy and sad faces, both with and without tears, in addition to a neutral control condition. Participants first completed an emotion discrimination task, and then an imitation condition where they were required to mimic the displayed expression. Mu enhancement was found in response to the discrimination task, whilst suppression was demonstrated in response to the imitation condition. Examination of the suppression scores revealed that greater suppression was observed in response to happy-tear and sad tear-free expressions. Planned contrasts exploring suppression to neutral faces revealed no significant differences between emotional and neutral conditions. The mu response to neutral expressions resembled that of the happy-tear and the sad tear-free conditions, lending support to the idea that ambiguous emotional expressions require greater sensorimotor engagement. This study provides preliminary evidence for the role of the mirror neuron system in discerning tearful expressions of emotion in the absence of context.  Keywords:  Adult crying; EEG; Face perception; Mirror neurons; Tears."

Abstract only:  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32387069/


With kind regards,

Debbie

Debra Swank, RN BSN IBCLC
Program Director
MoreThanReflexes Education
Elkins, West Virginia USA
http://www.MoreThanReflexes.org















  

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome