WHY HORSES ARE SO IN
TUNE WITH HUMAN EMOTION A
nyone who has spent extended periods of time around horses will agree that they are remarkably astute at reading and responding to human emotions. In fact, in the scientific world, their ability to recognise emotions in people’s voices and facial expressions has been found to be comparable to that of dogs and primates. This begs the question: what makes horses so efficient at reading and responding to human emotion? The answer to this question is provided by the emerging scientific field of Interpersonal Neurobiology, which posits that horses have the keen ability to decipher human emotion because they uniquely possess an abundance of a specific class of brain cells, known as mirror neurons.
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WHAT ARE MIRROR NEURONS?
Mirror neurons are a class of brain cells that allow people to recognise and empathise with emotion seen in other living things. Essentially, they afford us the ability to adopt another person’s point of view and see things from their perspective. In order to wholly comprehend mirror neurons, it is necessary first to have a brief understanding of motor-command neurons. Motor-command neurons are cells that fire when a specific action is performed. For instance, one cell will fire to lift your arm, a second will fire when you grab a chocolate, and a third will fire to put the chocolate in your mouth. In examining these motor-command neurons in monkeys, researchers in Italy noted
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