Neuroethics

What is the significance of research concerning mirror neurons?

I first heard of mirror neurons several years ago from various science blogs when it was at the peak of inflated expectations, but I never really read about them in depth until now; what an exciting field of research. I immediately wonder if in the future we might be able to test people for deficits in the mirror network to explain or predict violent, anti-social behavior. I also wonder if we might one day be able to fix such deficits with therapy or psychopharmacology or some combination of both. The article doesn’t mention anything about what might cause a break down in the mirror system in humans, other than the autistic pathology, but I can’t help but wonder if early childhood development or lack there-of could affect how developed a person’s mirror network might become. If a baby is neglected and doesn’t have many chances to interact and mimic the social bodies around it, this must have an important impact on the development of empathic systems. This mirror network might explain differences in people’s varied reactions to external stimulus. I have to admit, I really enjoy horror films, the more violent, the better, and I also have a somewhat limited ‘rationale based’ compassion for people I don’t know who are experiencing trauma. I hear about a mass shooting or a terrible plague somewhere in the world outside my immediate surroundings and it doesn’t really affect me much. I don’t know those people, this doesn’t affect me, that’s just how the world works. On the other hand, I know people who can’t watch horror films, and I know people who are emotionally devastated by death and destruction of others in the news, people who will cry and become enraged as if these things were happening to their loved ones. I think its possible that this mirror system is a continuum and I’m somewhere on one side and they are somewhere on the other. I’ve also never been exactly talented at making friends and...