The Empathic Brain: How the Discovery of Mirror Neurons Changes Our Understanding of Human Nature - Softcover

The discovery ofmirror neurons has caused an unparalleled wave of excitement amongstscientists. The Empathic Brainmakes you share this excitement. Its vivid and personal descriptions ofsome of the most exciting discoveries in the history of brain sciencemake it a captivating and refreshing read. Through intellectuallyrigorous but powerfully accessible prose, Prof. Christian Keysers makesus realize just how deeply mirror neurons change our understanding ofhuman nature. You will start looking at yourselves differently - nolonger as a mere individual but as a deeply interconnected, socialmind.

The Content
Your heart beats faster as you watch a tarantula crawl on James Bond’schest in the movie Dr No,your hands sweat and your skin tingles under the spider’s legs. Youfeel scared, tense, and finally relieved when Bond manages to escapethe danger. We are essentially empathic. But what is empathy? How doesyour brain enable you to feel so much of what 007 is feeling? How doyou connect with people in real life, people you love or evenstrangers? In this book, you will visit leading labs to find your ownanswers. The journey starts where ‘mirror neurons’ were discovered. Thedoor of a lab in Parma, Italy, opens to reveal that your motor systemnot only controls your own body - it becomes automatically activatedeach time you see others move. A little later, you lie down on a bedand slowly move into the bore of a brain scanner in Marseille, becominga subject in an experiment that will show how your own sensations andemotions are automatically triggered while you witness those of others.These experiments unravel the mirror in our brain that lets our ownactions, sensations and emotions resonate with those of Bond and thepeople around us. By sharing their inner lives, we connect with them.We are hard-wired for empathy. By looking at autistic individuals andpsychopathic criminals, by comparing men and women, by exploringempathy for robots and enemies, this book explores the multifacetednature of empathy and evidences both its power and limits. Sciencebegins to reveal the wisdom of why so many of the world’s religionscommand “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Praise

If anyone can write about the brain mechanisms of empathy, Keysers is the man. A page turning read. A grand perspective on many aspects of the empathic brain. He explains why we should re-think morality, education and ethics in light of the way we have evolved to resonate with each other. A book ahead of the game. A great authoritative read.

Prof. Bruce Hood, 2011 Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer, Bristol University for The Psychologist.

Christian Keysers has the combined skills of a hard-core animal neuroscientists, the talents of a human brain imager, and the sophistication of a theoretician. This book takes us on a critical journey of the discovery of mirror neurons (he was part of this journey), our understanding of empathy, imitation, and language. Though many have written about mirror neurons, this book outshines them all. If you want an honest account of mirror neurons, how they work, and what we can learn from them, read Keysers’ book.

Prof. Mark Hauser, Harvard University, author of Moral Minds.

Dr Christian Keysers' work has been seminal for the scientific study of empathy. Born in 1973, his work has led to publications in the most prominent scientific journals and has made him one of the youngest people to attain the rank of Full Professor. His capacity to explain his science to the wider audience earned him the Marie Curie Excellence Award. He now leads a lab together with his wife at the prestigious Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam. He is a Full Professor at the UMCG and a frequent Visiting Professor at the California Institute of Technology. Outside of the laboratory, his wife Valeria and his daughter Julia are teaching him why empathy is such a gift.