![Giacomo Rizzolatti and mirror neurons](/images/per_testi/rizzolatti.jpg ""Le Roman de Tristan, chevalier de la Table Ronde", incunable, held at the Galleria Estense in Modena")
Mirror neurons — the subject of one of the most significant scientific discoveries in recent years, with neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti among its primary discoverers — are recognized as the embodied basis for empathy. Furthermore, the activity of mirror neurons can also be considered part of the embodied foundation for aesthetic and artistic experience, in which a symbolic object serves as a means of intersubjective mediation, acting as a «mediator between the person who created it and the person who experiences it» (V. Gallese, Arte, corpo, cervello: per un’estetica sperimentale, “Micromega”, March 2014, p. 54).
In the article Giacomo Rizzolatti and the Discovery of Mirror Neurons, published by Rai Cultura, there is an interview with Professor Rizzolatti, in which the neuroscientist discusses mirror neurons in an accessible, popular-science style.
The interview is rich in content and follows a clear narrative arc, featuring many particularly significant moments. I would like to draw attention to one in particular: between the 17th and 18th minutes, an experimental study is described (for further details, see M. A. Umiltà et al., I know what you are doing: a neurophysiological study, “Neuron”, 2001, pp. 155–65) that demonstrates, with striking and powerful clarity, how a "reliable" representation of reality can be constructed through the interplay of experience, supposition, and imagination.
Go to Giacomo Rizzolatti and the Discovery of Mirror Neurons
