The Brain and Movement

I just read this brief article about how the brain of a dancer or someone who is trained in a specific type of movement reacts differently when watching that movement than observers who are not trained to perform the same moves they are watching. In a dancer who is watching movement that they are capable of performing the same neurons fire that would if they were actually the ones doing the movement. This in itself is extremely interesting but they go on to discuss a related study. This other study has concluded that when anyone watches tasks that they know how to perform being physically performed, even simple ones, the same neurons fire that would if they themselves were physically engaged in the task. These studies are really interesting to me because they show how connected we are to physical gesture and how much we respond internally to the gestures and physical acts of someone else.

http://www.youramazingbrain.org/Brainbody/dancers.htm