The VICON Method is based on the belief that the neural system that takes us from imitation to empathy has the capacity to improve and evolve with early, intensive, effective and professional attention. An intensive, evolutionary and online method is proposed as a pioneer for intervention based on mirror neurons to improve the symptoms of children with autism in their first years of life.

“Ramachandran wrote a fantastic article on the “broken mirror.” But the mirror system is never completely broken, it can always be improved if the diagnosis is early.” Giacomo Rizzolatti said it, who discovered mirror neurons twenty years ago. He was in Madrid, invited by the Tatiana Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno Foundation , where on February 15 he explained what that discovery was like and the important implications it had, before a very young audience, mostly university students, who packed the room. of the foundation. With the title: “ 20 years of mirror neurons: from imitation to empathy ”, the dialogue was coordinated by the Chair of Neuroscience of the Autonomous University of Madrid-Tatiana Pérez Foundation, directed by Dr. Carmen Cavada.

Rizzolatti, awarded the Prince of Asturias Research Award in 2011 , highlighted the practical applications of his discovery on the mirror system, in two important areas, rehabilitation and early intervention in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Autism seen from the perspective of mirror neurons opens the hopeful possibility of correcting symptoms in the first months of life , as some early intervention studies already suggest.

But what is the mirror system? This is how Rizzolatti explained it in Nature Clinical Practice in Neurology : “The essence of this “mirror” mechanism is the following: when people observe an action performed by another person, a set of neurons that encode [the pattern of movements] to That action is activated in the observers' motor system. Since observers are aware of the results of their [own] motor acts, they can understand what the other person is doing without the need to launch a cognitive process [to find out the intention of the others].”

“Autism affects a wide variety of nervous structures, from the cerebral cortex to the cerebellum and the brain stem. However, in a broader context of neurodevelopmental deficits, a set of ASD symptoms (impaired communication, language, and emotion, as well as the ability to understand others) appears to coincide with functions mediated by the mirror mechanism. One hypothesis is that this set of deficits could depend on an impairment of the mirror mechanism, and there is increasing evidence to support this view,” Rizzolatti continues.

Autism seen from mirror neurons

This new vision on autism spectrum disorders , maintains the neuroscientist from the University of Parma, could be used to establish new rehabilitation strategies based on a motor approach. The rationale for this approach is that if the motor cognition of people with ASD is improved, their social cognition and behavior would also improve.

He clarifies this with an example: Children with ASD and others with normal development were asked to pick up a food item to eat it or to place it in a container. In both cases, the activity of the mylohyoid muscle, which forms the floor of the mouth, was measured. In children without ASD, this muscle was activated as soon as they moved their arm to pick up the food. In contrast, there was no activation in children with ASD. In this case, muscle activation was evident only when they brought food to their mouths. These data indicate that children with ASD are not only unable to organize their own motor acts into a unitary action characterized by a specific intention, but also show a deficit in the mirror mechanism, as reflected in the absence of activation of the muscles involved in an observed action.

And it is at this point that Rizzolatti disagrees with Ramachandran's broken mirror theory . Because, he assures, the deteriorated, but not broken, mirror system can be improved by acting at a very early moment, in a critical window. And he cites the work of Sally Rogers, from Denver , “one of the strongest defenders of early diagnosis and intervention , in the first year of life,” he explains. Roger's work , with children from six to fifteen months, in which the first symptoms are detected (such as decreased eye contact, social interest, repetitive movement patterns, and lack of intentional communication) indicate that it can improve their developmental delay. And that improvement is maintained over time.

VICON Method is presented by pushing conventional therapies towards an innovative method based on the preferences of children with autism for the technological world, being an ideal alternative for families with logistics and realities marked by these children who require so much and so costly stimulation.

The interview with Rizzollatti can be read here

Extracted from ABC Blogs