Mirror neuron activity in younger and older adults

The human mirror neuron system (hMNS) may have an important role in social cognition, such as for understanding other's actions and intentions. In addition, difficulties in social cognition have been reported in healthy ageing. We therefore investigated the functioning of the hMNS in healthy ageing using mu suppression as an EEG marker of the hMNS. Younger and older adults completed a hand movement observation task. Initially, participants performed a 2-minute resting-state EEG as a reference period. Subsequently, participants watched different video clips (3s in duration) depicting either a static hand or various hand actions, such as locking a door or clicking fingers. For younger adults, we replicated previous findings of greater mu suppression during hand movement observation compared to static hand observation. Interestingly, we found that mu suppression during hand movement observation was significantly greater for older adults compared to younger adults. Additional analyses examined how mu suppression, and hence hMNS activity, is influenced by peoples’ day-to-day social experiences. The results suggest that the hMNS continues to specialise for social cognition with advancing age.