Olympics Junkie

Maybe this is why I like watching sports so much...the neural benefits without the need to participate? (from Seed Magazine):

"Humans have an even more elaborate mirror-neuron system. These peculiar cells mirror, on our inside, the outside world; they enable us to internalize the actions of another. In order to be activated, though, these cells require what the scientists call “goal-oriented movements.” If we are staring at a photograph, a fixed image of Michelle Kwan mid-turn, our mirror neurons are totally silent. They don’t care. They only fire when Kwan is an active verb: jumping, moving, twirling. Our mirror neurons were designed for the Olympics broadcast, not for the front of the sports page.

What these electrophysiological studies indicate is that when we watch Tiger Woods at Augusta, or Michelle Kwan step on the ice, the mirror neurons in our own premotor cortex light up as if we were the ones competing. Though we are in reality sprawled on the couch, with one hand on the remote and the other on a beer, our premotor cortex is convinced that we are one of the world’s greatest athletes."