Mirror neurons and theory of mind in explaining empathy

Empathy is a person’s ability to experiment other people’s thoughts and feelings and to react to them in an adequate manner. There are two different components within the concept of empathy: cognitive and emotional. The former implies the ability to understand thoughts and feelings of another person; the latter allows the individual to share the mental state of another person responding to his/her demands. We comment here on two theories that explain empathy: the mirror neurons and the Theory of Mind. Mirror neurons are a particular type of neurons which are activated when an individual performs an action, but also when he/she observes a similar action performed by someone else. For theory of mind, to attribute mind to another person is a theoretical activity because we cannot observe his mind, but we generate hypotheses about what he/she is thinking about or feeling, and, in this way, we interpret his/her behaviour. We deduce a genetic continuity between both theories in a different explanatory level: mirror neurons at a neuronal level (basic neuroscience) and theory of mind at a cognitive level. Implications of both theories in the explanation of autism are discussed.