Schizophrenia and the mirror system: an essay.
We analyze how data on the mirror system for grasping in macaque and human ground the mirror system hypothesis for the evolution of the language-ready human brain, and then focus on this putative relation between hand movements and speech to contribute to the understanding of how it may be that a schizophrenic patient generates an action (whether manual or verbal) but does not attribute the generation of that action to himself. We make a crucial discussion between self-monitoring and attribution of agency. We suggest that verbal hallucinations occur when an utterance progresses through verbal creation pathways and returns as a vocalization observed, only to be dismissed as external since no record of its being created has been kept. Schizophrenic patients on this theory then confabulate the agent.
Arbib
Michael A
MA
Computer Science, Neuroscience, and the USC Brain Project, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520, USA.
Mundhenk
T Nathan
TN
D000818:Animals; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000523:psychology; D018737:Hand Strength / Q000502:physiology; D000882:Haplorhini; D006801:Humans; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology