Manuscript. Do not cite. 1 Mirror neurons or emulator neurons?

Mirror neurons are cells in the macaque brain that discharge both when the monkey performs a certain action and when it observes someone else performing similar actions. It has been suggested that the main function of these neurons is to make the goal of the observed actions understood by internal simulation. I propose that the function of these neurons is different: predictive emulation, rather than postdictive mirroring, of observed actions. The discovery of mirror neurons (MNs) in monkeys, and the mirror neuron system in humans, has been hailed as the most important finding of the last decade in neuroscience (Ramachandran, 2000). These cells are primarily located in the ventral premotor area of F5 of the macaque brain and have both motor and visual properties (di Pellegrino et al., 1992; Jeannerod et al., 1995; Gallese et al., 1996; Rizzolatti et al., 1996; Ferrari et al, 2005). They discharge when the monkey executes specific goal-directed hand or mouth actions, and they are also activated when the animal observes another individual performing similar actions. Neurons with comparable mirror properties have also been discovered in the inferior parietal lobule (Gallese et al., 2002; Fogassi et al., 2005)