Embodied neuroscience: making sense of dance

Over the last decade, dance has received much attention in cognitive neuroscience research. The interest has predominantly evolved through the finding of so-called mirror neurons. These neurons are activated during action execution and action observation, as if spectators mentally simulate the movements they observe. Such « mirroring» activity has been measured across a frontal-parietal net¬work in the human brain and is enhanced when spectators have either motor or visual experience in the movements seen. It is thought that mirroring processes play an important role in understanding others’ actions. It is, however, only through the use of more ecological valid, complex stimuli of long duration that specific functional roles of areas within the mirror-neuron network could be identified. I argue that scientific and equally artistically valid research requires cross-disciplinary collaborations. Based on specific examples, I will propose that embodied neuroscience (i.e. physical participation in a discipline’s research practice) will increase our understanding of how we make sense of each other’s expressions in everyday live as well as through art.