Mirror neurons were discovered at the Università degli Studi di Parma in the 1990s and first described as nerve cells in the frontal and premotor cortex of macaques that fire both when the monkey perf

Mirror neurons were discovered in the 1990s at the Università degli Studi di Parma. They are nerve cells found in the frontal and premotor cortex of macaques that fire both when the monkey performs a movement and when it observes the same movement by another monkey or a human. Mirror neurons have also been found in humans, but not in other species, indicating that this might be a peculiar feature of primates. Scientists believe that mirror neurons allow understanding of the meaning of another’s actions and constitute the neural basis of imitation learning and empathy