A look into Gabe's World

I found this video while searching Google video. It is not very long, only about six minutes, and if you do not have a fast enough connection you may not be able to watch, but I found this video to be very informative, and easy to understand. It shows a boy with Asperger’s syndrome and the host of the program performing the experiment I wrote about for my first source. I like the idea of including this video for those of you that are visual learners. I hope you are able to watch it, but if not I have included a brief summery.

The video starts with a boy named Gabe, who has Asperger’s syndrome, which is a mild case of autism; the two terms are often interchangeable. The host describes the disability briefly and then explains that so far a sure cause is elusive, but that there is new research in a promising area: mirror neurons. He describes the function of the neurons and how they are linked to our ability to ‘put ourselves in someone else’s shoes’ and therefore be able to feel and sympathize with that person. After the host explains the function of mirror neurons, he and Gabe are shown hooked up to an EEG machine at the University of California San Diego. They both perform the task of opening and closing their hands, then they watch a video of the same task being performed by someone else. They also watch two people bouncing a red ball and white noise (static) for controls in the experiment. They do not show the results of the EEG test, however the host explains that Gabe’s mirror neurons did not fire when watching the video of the hand on the video screen and did when he was asked to perform the task himself. The host uses the example of a cheerleading squad to show a practical use of the mirror neuron system. The video ended abruptly for me and I could not get it to play the last few seconds so I cannot say how it ended, but I thought this was a very well done video and a great source to post on this blog so I hope you enjoyed if you were able to watch and I hope it better helped you to understand what I am researching.