A new study confirms what parents already knew

Aug 12, 2009 05:46 GMT  ·  By
One of the children involved in the new study, carrying the net of EEG electrodes on their head
   One of the children involved in the new study, carrying the net of EEG electrodes on their head

Small children at times surprise their family and relatives when they are caught with an amazed or curious look in their eyes, which seems to hint at the fact that the “wheels” inside their brains are spinning full speed. Parents have known this for a long time, but now a new scientific study comes to confirm it, and offer a solid explanation, LiveScience informs.

According to the new research, when children were hooked up to an electroencephalograph (EEG) machine, their brain activity patterns showed some interesting behaviors. EEG is usually used to recorded and display the levels of electrical activity in the brain, showing researchers when and where most activity occurs and over what periods of time. In the recent investigation, scientists made 9-month-old babies watch as older people reached for objects. The EEG reading showed that motor areas in their brain activated as if they themselves were reaching for the objects.

Experts infer that nerve cells known as mirror neurons may be responsible for this behavior. That is to say, these neurons are those that fire both when we do something and when we see someone do the same thing. Thus far, they were only evidenced in monkeys, but scientists believe that they certainly exist in humans, and the new study seems to indicate that small children have them as well.

“Even in the first year of life, babies are using the area of their brain that is involved in their own motor skills, in order to help them perceive other people's actions,” explains University of London Center for Brain and Cognitive Development expert Victoria Southgate, the lead researcher of the new study.

“The fact that the brain activity in babies is 'predictive' – it occurs when the baby can predict that someone will reach for an object – suggests that babies (and probably adults too) use their own motor system in order to figure out how someone else's action will unfold. That is, by accessing your own motor plan for how you would, for example, achieve the goal of picking up an object, you can make a good prediction about how someone else would also do that,” the expert tells LiveScience.

“For babies, this kind of brain activity may form the basis of their abilities to begin to engage in collaborative activities with others, which is likely to be an important part of their enculturation,” Southgate concludes. Details of the latest study appear in the most recent issue of the journal Biology Letters.