{"id":89456,"date":"2019-04-11T20:22:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T03:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/mindreading-neurons-simulate-decisions-of-social-partners"},"modified":"2019-04-11T20:22:21","modified_gmt":"2019-04-12T03:22:21","slug":"mindreading-neurons-simulate-decisions-of-social-partners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/mindreading-neurons-simulate-decisions-of-social-partners","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Mindreading\u2019 neurons simulate decisions of social partners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/mindreading-neurons-simulate-decisions-of-social-partners2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientists have identified special types of brain cells that may allow us to simulate the decision-making processes of others, thereby reconstructing their state of mind and predicting their intentions. Dysfunction in these \u2018simulation neurons\u2019 may help explain difficulties with social interactions in conditions such as autism and social anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at the University of Cambridge identified the previously-unknown neuron type, which they say actively and spontaneously simulates mental decision processes when social partners learn from one another.<\/p>\n<p>The study, published today in <em>Cell<\/em>, suggests that these newly-termed \u2018simulation neurons\u2019 \u2014 found in the amygdala, a collection of nerve cells in the temporal lobe of the brain \u2014 allow animals (and potentially also humans) to reconstruct their social partner\u2019s state of mind and thereby predict their intentions.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/pub_releases\/2019-04\/uoc-ns040519.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\">Read more<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have identified special types of brain cells that may allow us to simulate the decision-making processes of others, thereby reconstructing their state of mind and predicting their intentions. Dysfunction in these \u2018simulation neurons\u2019 may help explain difficulties with social interactions in conditions such as autism and social anxiety. Researchers at the University of Cambridge [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":501,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/501"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}