Mirror Neuron initial thinking

The idea of “mirror neurons” seems false to me when opposed to the idea that standard neuron network can
produce the same mirroring effect:

If, say, taring a paper is a combine sensory experience of touch resistance, sound and visual stimuli,
the brain will have a network that stands for this concept.

If this network is highly trained/associated, then only one part has to become active (ie hearing a paper tare,
or seeing another person tare a piece of paper) to activate the associated neurons in the network.

Recent study (Dinstein I, 2008, 2008) propose that mirror neurons don’t exist and that firing in those regions
due to other processes.

The human infant brain uses “mirroring” to an effect before 12 months of Age. This indicates to me that
the connections that form “concepts” in our brain are still developing at that age and can change and modify
quickly during that period.

More and more I seem to believe in an almost 2 stage learning process in the brain. The first is the
growth of primary “loose” connections between neighbouring neurons. The second is the growth of longer

# ^ Dinstein I, Gardner JL, Jazayeri M, Heeger DJ. J Neurosci. 2008 Oct 29;28(44):11231-9.
# ^ Dinstein I, Hasson U, Rubin N, Heeger DJ. J Neurophysiol. 2007 Sep;98(3):1415-27. Epub 2007 Jun 27.
# ^ Terje Falck-Ytter, Gustaf Gredebäck & Claes von Hofsten (2006), Infants predict other people’s action goals[4], Nature Neuroscience 9 (2006)