Many theories have been proposed for Autism spectrum disorder, amongst these after the discovery of mirror neurons in macaque monkeys by Di Pellegrino, Fadiga, Fogassi, Gallese and Rizzolatti (1992), is the broken mirror neuron theory. The two papers seek to investigate the influence of the human mirror neuron system (MNS) on the presence of Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Both papers were published in peer-reviewed journals and so appear to be reliable and the two papers exemplify the inconsistent results both supporting and opposing evidence of the broken mirror neuron system. The two papers differ on their conclusion of the role of the mirror neuron system, while Fan, Decety, Yang, Liu and Cheng (2010) concluded in their EEG study that an intact
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The human mirror neuron system is a set of regions within the brain that are active both when an individual observes an individual performing an action and when they perform the same action themselves. One of the main weaknesses of both the mirror neuron system theory is that it fails to provide an explanation for all symptoms. The Mirror Neuron system has been suggested to provide an explanation for aspects of Autism Spectrum Disorder such as imitative learning, empathy and theory of mind. While this may provide explanations regarding impaired reciprocal social interactions, it does not provide an explanation for impaired social communication or repetitive & stereotyped activities. Neither paper seeks to address these other symptoms of …show more content…
(2006) included a control for handedness, ensuring that all participants where right handed; information was taken on any current psychotropic medicine in both ASD participants and control group, though mentioned in the study this did not exclude them. Notably Fan et al (2010) does not mention if any participants where on any medication, which may be a disadvantage as it is estimated that 40-50% of those with autism are prescribed at least one psychotropic mediation (Weeden, Ehrhadt & Poling, 2010). SSRIs are one of the commonly prescribed medications in individuals with ASD, a study by Dumont, Visser, Cohen and van Gerven (2005) were been able to detect differences in EEG results in those on SSRIs. This does suggest that any psychotropic medicine the participants in Fan et al. (2010) study may have been could have impacted the results, though it is not taken into consideration in their
The human mirror neuron system is a set of regions within the brain that are active both when an individual observes an individual performing an action and when they perform the same action themselves. One of the main weaknesses of both the mirror neuron system theory is that it fails to provide an explanation for all symptoms. The Mirror Neuron system has been suggested to provide an explanation for aspects of Autism Spectrum Disorder such as imitative learning, empathy and theory of mind. While this may provide explanations regarding impaired reciprocal social interactions, it does not provide an explanation for impaired social communication or repetitive & stereotyped activities. Neither paper seeks to address these other symptoms of …show more content…
(2006) included a control for handedness, ensuring that all participants where right handed; information was taken on any current psychotropic medicine in both ASD participants and control group, though mentioned in the study this did not exclude them. Notably Fan et al (2010) does not mention if any participants where on any medication, which may be a disadvantage as it is estimated that 40-50% of those with autism are prescribed at least one psychotropic mediation (Weeden, Ehrhadt & Poling, 2010). SSRIs are one of the commonly prescribed medications in individuals with ASD, a study by Dumont, Visser, Cohen and van Gerven (2005) were been able to detect differences in EEG results in those on SSRIs. This does suggest that any psychotropic medicine the participants in Fan et al. (2010) study may have been could have impacted the results, though it is not taken into consideration in their