Volume : VII, Issue : IX, September - 2017

Role of Mirror Neurons in Surgical Skills Training

Prof Dr Arun Jamkar, Dr Maya Jamkar

Abstract :

 In the early 1990‘s, Italian researchers discovered that the monkey ain contains a special class of cells that fire when it sees or hears an action and when it carries out the same action on its own. These cells were termed as the ‘Mirror Neurons’. Subsequent research in humans revealed that the human ain has multiple mirror neuron systems that specialize in carrying out and understanding the actions, intentions, emotions and behavior. The available scientific literature provides substantial evidence that Mirror neurons offer the basis to grasp the actions and intentions of others through direct imitation without the need for any conceptual reasoning. The discovery of Mirror neurons has added a new light to the understanding of  culture, empathy, philosophy, language, imitation  and autism.

The present paper gives a ief overview of the myriad applications of the concept and mechanism of mirror neurons. Here, we present an innovative concept of harnessing the functional mechanism of Mirror neurons to the domain of psychomotor surgical skill development essential for surgeons. We have illustrated this concept by extracting references and thought–models from previous works. However, none of the previous works have demonstrated the utility of application of Mirror mechanism in surgical training. This paper propounds the potential utilization of cognitive functioning of Mirror neurons to the psychomotor domain of surgical skill enhancement. This will not only open new concepts in skill learning for apprentice surgeons but will also enhance the surgical proficiency of skilled surgeons.

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Article: Download PDF   DOI : 10.36106/ijar  

Cite This Article:

Prof Dr Arun Jamkar, Dr Maya Jamkar, Role of Mirror Neurons in Surgical Skills Training, INDIAN JOURNAL OF APPLIED RESEARCH : Volume-7 | Issue-9 | September-2017

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