Culture, the new genome

Sometime along the line of human evolution, about a hundred and fifty thousand years ago, the human race went through a radical change [1]. Since about 200,000 years ago to the modern times very few changes occurred in the DNA database of man and anthropologists explain a changeover to behavioural modernity leading to a total turnover of who we are and what we do[2]. The evolution of the modern human occurred with a "mental phase transition" [16], and mankind went forward in a startling evolution in culture, in terms of art, technology etc. To any observer with negligible associations with the human race, for example an alien, this remarkable change could easily be concluded as a mutation in our genome. As neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran explains, what caused this transition in our culture was the development of a nerve circuitry in our brain called the mirror neuron system[3]. Neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti while working with Giuseppe Di Pellegrino, Luciano Fadiga, Leonardo Fogassi, and Vittorio Gallese at the University of Parma, Italy discovered a set of neurons in the pre-frontal cortex called the mirror neurons [4]. They observed that these neurons fired when a monkey simply observed another monkey do something, without being associated physically, with that particular action, as well as when it did that action itself. The same neurons were later also found in the human brain. It was discovered that these neurons were capable of simulating the behaviour of the observed organism in the mind of the observer, and even go a step further and deduce the result of the observed action [4]. It was as if, the brain of the monkey believed that the same neurons are firing for which it would be reaching for a banana, so the other monkey is also probably reaching for banana. Experiments using people with phantom limbs showed that, they felt that the pain in their phantom limbs were relieved when they simply saw someone messaging the same hand of another person [5]. The importance of such a discovery is in no ways negligible. The existence of mechanisms to copy others set the stones for new explanations of many concepts. For one, individuals' capability of mimicking the vocalizations of other individuals, along with the ability to mimic their actions, set up the groundwork for languages. [7] . Artificial intelligence played an important role in the understanding of mirror neuron systems. Elhanan Borenstein, et al developed computational models of evolutionary adaptive agents, and found that while creating a system in which only the evolution of imitation is demanded, a neural mirroring system had emerged [17]. Elshaw, Weber, Zochios, and Wermter (2004) implemented an associator network based on the Helmholtz machine (Dayan, Hinton, Neal, & Zemel, 1995) where the motor action codes were associated with vision and language representations [8]. Oztop, Chaminade, Cheng, and Kawato (2005) used an extension of a Hopfield net utilizing product terms to implement a hand posture imitation system using a robotic hand. Another experiment dealt with creating Mirror Neuron Systems using a Boltzmann machine. A Boltzmann machine is a type of stochastic recurrent neural network invented by Geoffrey Hinton and Terry Sejnowski, and named after Ludwig Von Boltzmann. These were one of the first examples of a neural network capable of learning internal representations, and able to represent and (given sufficient time) solve difficult combinatoric problems [9, 10]. They could be used as an associative model, because given a partial observation, they could generate the remainder. Restricted Boltzmann Machines were found to successfully emulate Mirror Neuron System behaviour, by functioning as an associative memory.

However it should be noted that the subscription of mirror neurons to associative learning given by Cecilia Heyes as products of social interaction opposed the idea of them being the cause of an evolutionary leap[2, 11]. The resolution of this contradiction can probably be obtained by looking for mirror neurons associated with the back of our head, as explained by Ramachandran [12]. Another rich source for the study of the mirror neurons is the field of cognitive sciences. Cognitive science refers to ascribing a mental process to the working of other beings. The study of cognitive science involves understanding the line of thought of a fellow human being [13]. In other words, even though one cannot actually feel what it is like to be the observed individual, one can use one's own mind to project intentions, perceptions, and beliefs into the minds of others. In doing so one is able to infer their feelings and intentions and to predict and influence their behaviour. Ramachandran claims, that the very essence of cognitive science brings up the involvement of mirror neurons, because they are essentially a network of mind-reading cells within the brain. These neurons provide the missing physiological basis for certain high-level abilities that had been challenging for neuroscientists to explain. Mirror neurons seem to explain those functions, such as, empathy, intention-reading, mimicry, pretend play, and language learning [14]. Ramachandran proposes that emergence of mirror neuron network brought about an evolution of culture and evolution of culture occurred together with evolution of mirror neurons. A Lamarckian evolution erupted as human beings started to emulate each other and the inventions of one individual quickly spread in a geometric growth curve among the entire population. Armed with an evolving culture mankind could overcome environmental challenges much faster than what Darwinian evolution by genetic mutation would allow. Essentially culture got integrated as a part of our genome[16].

Citations :
[1]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_prehistory [2]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution [3]. V.S. Ramachandran (2001), The Tell-Tale Brain - A Neuroscientists Quest for What Makes Us Human, Chapter 4, 117 [4]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron [5]. V.S. Ramachandran (2001), The Tell-Tale Brain - A Neuroscientists Quest for What Makes Us Human, Chapter 4, 110 [6]. http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct05/mimicry.aspx [7]. V.S. Ramachandran (2001), The Tell-Tale Brain - A Neuroscientists Quest for What Makes Us Human, Chapter 4, 104 [8]. O. Erhan, K. Mitsuo, A. Michael, (2006), Mirror neurons and imitation: A computationally guided review, Science Direct. [9]. M. Marijnissen, (2011), Sparse Restricted Boltzmann Machine's as a model of the Mirror Neuron System

[10]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_machine [11]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning#Associative_learning [12]. V.S. Ramachandran (2001), The Tell-Tale Brain - A Neuroscientists Quest for What Makes Us Human, Notes, 247 [13]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science [14]. V.S. Ramachandran (2001), The Tell-Tale Brain - A Neuroscientists Quest for What Makes Us Human, Chapter 5, 119 [15]. http://edge.org/conversation/mirror-neurons-and-imitation-learning-as-the-driving-forcebehind-the-great-leap-forward-in-human-evolution [16]. V.S. Ramachandran (2001), The Tell-Tale Brain - A Neuroscientists Quest for What Makes Us Human, Introduction, 30 [17]. http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~ruppin/emn_borens_cogsysres_r.pdf [18]. http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html

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