title: Hou Yifan

text: China and France played for the Trophée MULTICOMS in Paris 4–9 September 2006. This was also a Scheveningen team match with six men and three women in the teams. France edged out China 20–16 in the men's event. The women's section was a complete mismatch in terms of Elo ratings in favour of the Chinese and they confirmed this over the board winning 12½–5½. The overall result was China 28½ France 25½. Hou Yifan was again the highest scoring female player with 5/6 and a performance rating of 2498.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In October in Yerevan, Armenia at the World Junior Chess Championship (Girl's section) despite being only 12 years old, Hou was the top rated girl with a 2481 FIDE Rating and went on to take second place on tiebreak with a score of 9/12 (+6 =4 −2), tied for first on points behind her compatriot Shen Yang. Her rating performance was 2469.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In January 2007, Hou achieved a respectable fifth place in Group C (Cat. 10, 2486) of the Corus Chess Tournament with a score of 7/13 (+4 =6 −3) and a 2513 performance rating. This result, together with WGM norms she had earned at the 2005 Zonal 3.5 Women's Championship, the 37th Chess Olympiad and the 2006 Chinese Championship (Women's) won her the Woman Grandmaster title, formally conferred by FIDE in late January 2007.


title: Hou Yifan

text: At the Aeroflot Open in February 2007, a few weeks before Hou's thirteenth birthday, she played in the A1 group for the first time. Hou started well with two wins out of two, defeating first the Russian IM Nikita Vitiugov (rated 2604) and then the 2001 European Champion, GM Emil Sutovsky of Israel (rated 2629). However, in the third round she was defeated by the Russian Championship runnerup, Dmitry Jakovenko, and only managed one draw in her next five games. She rallied in the final round with a victory against the Greek grandmaster, Vasilios Kotronias, and finished with a score of 3½/9(TPR 2540).


title: Hou Yifan

text: In March, at the first Ruy Lopez International Festival (cat. XV (2607)) in Zafra, Hou performed badly to finish last with 2/7 (+1 =2 −4). Her performance rating was 2462.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In April, she came in second at the China Women Selective Tournament in Ningbo for the 2007 Asian Indoor Games to be held in October. She scored 8/14 (+6 =4 −4, TPR 2434).


title: Hou Yifan

text: From 1–11 May 2007, at the eighth Russian Team Chess Championship (Women's) in Dagomys, Hou played for "Southern Ural Chelyabinsk" on board one and scored 6½/10 (+5 =3 −2, TPR 2523). At the 1st World Women's Team Chess Championship in Ekaterinburg later that month, Hou was part of the winning China national team that also included Zhao Xue, Ruan Lufei, Shen Yang, and Huang Qian. Hou Yifan played on board two in every round and scored 7½/9 (+7 =1 −1), winning the gold medal for that board. Her performance rating was 2559.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In June 2007, she won her first Chinese Women's Chess Championship in Chongqing. Hou was thirteen years old at the time, breaking WGM Qin Kanying's record as the youngest champion (she was fourteen years old when winning the title in 1988). Hou scored 9/11 (+7 =4 -0, TPR 2585). Second and third place went to Zhao Xue and Shen Yang, respectively.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In July, she improved on her previous year's performance at the North Urals Cup in Krasnoturinsk, finishing in seventh place out of ten players. She scored 4/9 (+3 =2 −4) with a performance rating of 2436. The tournament was won by Zhu Chen and with Zhao Xue in second place.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In 4–15 August, she competed in what was then her strongest closed tournament – the fifth Győrgy Marx Memorial (Cat. 14, 2582) in Paks, Hungary. Being the lowest rated player and the only non-Grandmaster (out of Pentala Harikrishna, Péter Ács, Csaba Balogh, Ferenc Berkes, and Viktor Korchnoi), she finished in last place in the double round-robin event with 3/10 (+1 =4 −5; TPR 2444).


title: Hou Yifan

text: At the UK-China Match in Liverpool 3–9 September 2007, China defeated the UK team with a comfortable score of 28–20. Hou played for the men's team and scored 2½/6 (+1 =3 −2) with a performance rating of 2540. The average rating of her opponents (R) was 2598.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In late September, she came in first at the 2007 Chinese Women's Zonal (3.5) tournament in Tianjin with a score of 8/9 (+7 =2 −0, TPR 2675). In October 2007, she competed at the twelfth European Club Cup in Kemer, Turkey for team "Southern Ural Cheliabinsk". Hou played on board two for the team, which finished fourth in the women's tournament. In the individual women's standings, Hou came in fifth with a score of 5/7 (+3 =4 −0) and a performance rating of 2556.


title: Hou Yifan

text: From October 26 to November 3, she competed for Team China at the second Asian Indoor Games in Macau. The national team won team gold in the classic chess mixed team event with 11 match points (18½ game points out of 24). The Chinese team members were Zhao Xue, Xu Yuhua, Hou Yifan, Wang Hao, Ni Hua, and Bu Xiangzhi. Hou Yifan won an individual gold medal for her board two display with a score of 5½/6 (+5 =1 −0; 91.7%) and a performance rating of 2649.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou participated in the 2007 season of the China Chess League, officially known as the "Torch Real Estate Cup Chinese Chess League Division A". She played for the "Shandong Qilu Evening News Chess Team", who became the 2007 champions when they defeated the 2006 champion Beijing team, 3½ to 1½.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In the January Corus 2008 chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Hou competed in Group B where she finished in a tie for seventh–tenth place (ninth by tiebreak) achieving 6/13 (+3 −4 =6) with a performance rating of 2598. She scored victories over three grandmasters, including a 23-move win over former World Champion challenger Nigel Short.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In February 2008, Hou gained her first Grandmaster norm (GM norm) at the Aeroflot Open in Moscow by finishing in 31st place with a score of 4½/9 (+2 =5 −2, TPR 2605). This was followed in March 2008 with a victory at the first Atatürk International Women Masters Chess Tournament (cat. IX (2461)) in Istanbul, Turkey where she finished a point ahead of the rest of the field on 7/9 (+5 =4 −0) with a performance rating of 2674. Her victory in this tournament earned her a GM norm conditional on FIDE ratifying then WGM Zhao Xue's attainment of her GM title. However this GM norm was not used in her eventual official grandmaster title application.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In April 2008, she competed in Mérida, Spain at the second Ruy Lopez Chess Festival tournament. In the category XV (2616) round-robin event she finished seventh out of eight players with 2/7 (+1, =2, −4) and a rating performance of 2467.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou competed in the Chinese Chess League again in the 2008 season, which had eighteen rounds in six different cities from March to August. Hou's teammates were GM Bu Xiangzhi, GM Zhao Jun, GM Wen Yang, and WGM Zhang Jilin.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In May–June 2008, she became the Chinese Women's Champion for the second consecutive time with 9/11 points (+7 =4 −0) in Beijing and a performance of 2599. At the July 2008 First Saturday GM Tournament in Budapest, Hou was top seed, but came in second place with 9/12, missing a GM norm by half a point. Her performance rating was 2574.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In August 2008 she competed in the World Junior Chess Championship held at Gaziantep, Turkey where she competed in the general ("boys'") section for the first time in her career. She was the only girl in this section and was the sixteenth seed on the entrant's list. Hou finished joint third–seventh on 9/13 (+6 =6 −1), achieving a performance rating of 2661 and her second GM norm.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In September 2008, FIDE referred to her as a "GM-elect", indicating that her Atatürk norm had been confirmed.


title: Hou Yifan

text: This meant that Hou Yifan qualified for the grandmaster title in August at the age of 14 years, 6 months, 2 days, making her one of the youngest grandmasters in history, as well as the youngest female.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In August–September 2008, she competed in her second Women's World Chess Championship at Nalchik, Russia. She had qualified by being one of the six highest rated players from the average of the July 2006–January 2007 period. In this knockout tournament, she was seeded third out of 64 players. She defeated WGM Mona Khaled (Egypt) 2–0 in the first round and WGM Batkhuyagiin Möngöntuul (Mongolia), 2–0 in the second. In third round, she had to go to rapid playoffs to eventually beat IM Elena Sedina (Italy) 3–1 (1–1, 2–0). In the quarterfinals she defeated Armenian IM Lilit Mkrtchian 1½–½, followed by Indian GM Humpy Koneru, the second seed, in the semifinals (4–2 overall, 1–1, 1–1, 2–0). She lost the final to Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia, 2½–1½. Nonetheless, she became the youngest ever finalist for the Women's World Championship title, earning an automatic International Master (IM) title and a "runner-up 9-game grandmaster norm", her fourth GM norm overall. Her performance rating for the entire championship was 2536.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou participated at the first World Mind Sports Games in Beijing from 3–18 October as a member of the Chinese team, winning the bronze medal in the Women's Individual Blitz event, the gold medal in the Mixed Pairs Rapid event (with Ni Hua), the silver medal in the Women's Teams Blitz event, and the gold medal in the Women's Teams Rapid event. In mid-late October, playing board one for team Spartak Vidnoe in the thirteenth European Club Cup held in Kallithea, Greece she scored 2/4 (+1 −1 =2, TPR 2448) helping her team to a second-place finish. Very shortly thereafter she played in the Cap d'Agde Rapid tournament from 24 October to 1 November, losing to former world champion Anatoly Karpov in a tiebreaker match at the end of the qualifying stage, despite winning the second tiebreak game.


title: Hou Yifan

text: At the 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden from 12 to 25 November, she played at the number 1 board in the Chinese women's team. Although her team did not win a prize, she still placed third in the individual board prize. She played in every round with a final result of 7½/11 (+5, =5, −1, TPR 2563).


title: Hou Yifan

text: At the 79th FIDE Congress, held on 16–26 November 2008 in Dresden, Germany, her GM title was approved making her the 27th Chinese Grandmaster. Her three approved GM norms were:


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou Yifan competed in the Grandmaster Group B of the 71st Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee from 16 January to 1 February 2009. She was seeded twelfth out of fourteen players and finished joint ninth–tenth with a performance rating of 2620. Between 7–19 March, she finished third in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix Tournament in Istanbul, scoring 8/11 (+6=4–1, TPR 2649).


title: Hou Yifan

text: From 12 to 23 May, she competed at the 8th Asia Continental Chess Championship at the Subic Exhibition and Convention Center, Subic Bay Freeport Zone in Olongapo City, Philippines. She scored 7½/11 with a 2640 performance, finishing seventh out of 86 on tiebreak. By finishing in the top ten she qualified for the 2009 World Cup.


title: Hou Yifan

text: From 9–15 August 2009 at the Jubilee Open, Zürich, she won the "best female player" prize by coming joint seventeenth with 6½/9 (+5 −1 =3, TPR 2590). From 19 August to 1 September at the NH Hotels Risings Stars vs Experienced, Amsterdam, she finished with a score of 3½/10 (+1 −4 =5, TPR 2548). She was defeated in the first round at the Chess World Cup 2009, Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, 20 November – 15 December 2009.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In January, she finished with 4½/9 at the Moscow Open. In February, she finished with 4/9 at the Aeroflot Open. In April, she won the third Kuala Lumpur Open 7.5/9 (+6 = 2, TPR 2730). In August, she won the 2010 Women's Grand Prix in Mongolia.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In October, she was on board two for Cercle d'Echecs de Monte Carlo in the 15th European Club Cup for Women held in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. She helped her team to a gold medal win with a 4.5/6 score (+3 =3, TPR 2651).


title: Hou Yifan

text: In November, she won the women's individual gold medal in the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou, China. She finished with 8½/9 and with a performance rating of 2798. She won another gold medal from the women's team event, representing China as the first board, along with her teammates Ju Wenjun, Zhao Xue, Huang Qian and Wang Yu, beating Uzbekistan 2½–1½ in the final.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In December she won the Women's World Chess Championship 2010 in Hatay, Turkey, making her the youngest women's world champion in history. Her compatriot Ruan Lufei was her opponent in the finals. After four games at classical time controls, the score was tied at 2–2, but Hou won the rapid playoffs 3–1 to take the title. Her performance rating was 2585.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In January 2011 she was due to take part in the Gibraltar Chess Festival, but pulled out because of a family illness. In April, she won the First Women Master Tournament in Wuxi with a 7/9 score (+6 −1 =2, TPR 2639).


title: Hou Yifan

text: In June, she took part in a tournament in India, the AAI International Grandmasters Chess Tournament 2011. She finished with a dismal last place, but in August, she rebounded to win clear first place in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2011–2012 tournament in Rostov, Russia. She then went on to win the second Grand Prix stage in Shenzhen in September 2011.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In August, she took part in the Chess World Cup 2011 in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. She was one of the two female participants in the 128-player single-elimination tournament. Her opponent for the first round was Sergei Movsesian, to whom she lost 2–0, resulting in her elimination.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In October she played on board one for team Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo in the 16th European Club Cup for women held in Rogaska Slatina, Slovenia. Her top rated team placed a disappointing 4th place, with Hou scoring 4/6 (+4 −2, TPR 2526)


title: Hou Yifan

text: In November Hou successfully defended her women's world champion title in the Women's World Chess Championship 2011 in Tirana, Albania against Koneru Humpy. Hou won 3 games and drew 5 in the ten-game match, winning the title with two games to spare. Her performance rating for the match was 2741.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Beginning December, Hou played in the 2011 SportAccord World Mind Games, held in Beijing, China which consisted of 3 events, rapid, blitz and blindfold. She placed joined 5–7th, 6th on tiebreaks with a 4/7 score (+2 −1 =4) in the rapid portion, but winning both the blitz and the blindfold portions with 11.5/15 (+9 −1 = 5) and 5.5/7 (+5 −1 =1) scores respectively.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Afterwards, Hou played for China in the Women's World Chess Team Championship in Mardin, Turkey. The 5 person team, arranged according to rating, consisted of herself, WGM Ju Wenjun, GM Zhao Xue, WGM Tan Zhongyi and WGM Zhang Xiaowen. China was the clear winner with 16 match points, having lost but one match to Ukraine in the 8th round and winning the rest, ahead of the runner-up Russia by three match points. Georgia grabbed bronze with 12 match points. Hou scored five points from the seven games she played (Wenjun played the first board for Round 1 and Round 2) (+3 = 4, TPR 2648).


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou started 2012 by taking equal first place at Tradewise alongside Nigel Short at the Gibraltar Chess Festival scoring 8/10 (+7 −1 =2) with a tournament performance of 2872. She came second on tiebreak when she lost the 2 game blitz playoff against Short by 1.5–0.5. She scored 5/7 against the 7 GMs she played rated 2700 or higher. This included 4 wins against Zoltán Almási (2717), Judit Polgár (2710) (Polgar's first loss against a female player after 22 years), Lê Quang Liêm (2714) and Alexei Shirov (2710), 2 draws against Michael Adams (2724) and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2747), whilst her only loss came against Krishnan Sasikiran (2700) in a close endgame of Q (with a pawn up) versus R+R with black.


title: Hou Yifan

text: From 6 to 13 March, she played and finished joint 2nd–8th in the 2012 Reykjavik Open 7/9 (+5 =4, TPR 2677). From 27 March to 7 April, she participated in the 2012 China Chess Individual Tournament Group A, the determiner of China's National Champion. She finished joint 7th–9th, 7th by tiebreak. 5/11 (+1 −2 =8; TPR 2560).


title: Hou Yifan

text: From April 13 to April 19, Hou played in the 2012 Bangkok Chess Club open. Seeded third by rating, she finished 14th, 6/9 (+4 −1 = 4; TPR 2500).


title: Hou Yifan

text: From 29 May to 7 June, she played in the 3rd Hainan Danzhou Grand Master Chess Tournament that traditionally showcased the top 10 highest rated Chinese players, although the two highest rated players at the time Wang Hao and Li Chao did not participate. Seeded 6th by rating, Hou finished in 10th and last place with 3/9.


title: Hou Yifan

text: From June 9 to June 22, Hou played in the 4th leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2011–2012 held in Kazan, Russia. Coming immediately off the heels of the recently completed Chinese Men's super tournament in Danzhou, she started off slowly with 2 points in the first 5 rounds before closing strongly with 4 wins in the final 6 rounds. She finished joint 3rd–4th. 7/11 (+5 −2 = 4; TPR 2604).


title: Hou Yifan

text: From July 16 to July 19, Hou played in the 5th leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2011–2012 held in Jermuk, Armenia. She won the event with a 7/11 score (+4 −1 =6, TPR 2598). This victory added to her victories in Rostov 2011 and Shenzeng 2011 made Hou the winner of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2011–2012 and secured for herself the challenger spot for the Women's World Chess Championship 2013.


title: Hou Yifan

text: At the 40th Chess Olympiad held in Istanbul, Turkey from 27 August to 10 September 2012, Hou Yifan led the Chinese women's chess team to a second place, silver medal finish. Hou won the gold medal for individual performance on board 1 with a 2645 TPR, 6.5/9 score (+4, =5). During the competition she was presented with the Caissa Cup, which honors the female player with the best chess results during the year.


title: Hou Yifan

text: From October 8 to October 17, Hou played in the European Chess Club Cup 2012 as a member of team, Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo. She played board 1 with 4.5/6 score (+4 −1 =1, TPR 2609) and her heavily favored team swept the round robin competition with a 7–0 score.


title: Hou Yifan

text: From October 19 to October 27, Hou played in the main even of 16th Univé Hoogeveen Chess Festival as part of the Univé Crown Group, a four player double round robin tournament. The average rating of the participants was 2695, making this a category 18 tournament. Hou finished in last place with a 2/6 score (−2 =4, TPR 2605).


title: Hou Yifan

text: In an interview in Kazan she said that she was going to start studying international relations at Beijing University in September. She said that she was glad China was moving away from its one-child policy, she would have liked to have had a brother or sister, and she knew of women who had been forced to have abortions.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In November 2012 she was knocked out in the second round of the Women's World Chess Championship 2012. As the winner of FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2011–2012 she earned the right to challenge the new champion in the Women's World Chess Championship 2013.


title: Hou Yifan

text: During December 12 to 19, Hou concluded the year by participating in the 2012 SportAccord World Mind Games, competing in the 3 disciplines of Rapid, Blitz and Blindfold. In the rapid event, she placed second on tiebreaks with a 5/7 score (+4 −1 =2, TPR 2713). For the blitz event, she placed 7th by tiebreaks with a 7/15 score (+6 −7 =2, TPR 2487). In the blindfold event, she won with a 6/7 score (+6 −1).


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou was invited to participate in the 2013 Tata Steel Chess Tournament Grandmaster A group in Wijk aan Zee from 12 to 27 January. This was a Category 20 event, and her first supertournament participation. She was the lowest Elo rated player at 2603 and seeded 14th. She surpassed initial expectations by finishing 11/14 with a 5.5/13 score (+3 −5 =5, TPR 2688) including a draw against then World Champion Viswanathan Anand. She competed in the 2013 China Chess Individual Tournament Group A in Xinghua, China from April 16 to the 27th. She finished in a six-way tie for 4th to 9th place, 4th by tie breaks, with a 5.5/11 score (+3 −3 =5, TPR 2609).


title: Hou Yifan

text: From May 2 to May 16, Hou competed in the 1st leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2013–2014 held in Geneva, Switzerland. She was the highest rated player in the event but finished 8th/9th, including a loss to the Women's World Champion 2012–13, Anna Ushenina. Her score was 5/11 (+3 −4 = 4, TPR 2470).


title: Hou Yifan

text: From 11 to 14 June, she played a four-game match with David Navara for the CEZ Chess Trophy 2013. All four games ended in draws, so the winner would be decided by tie breaks. After each player won with white in the blitz portion, an armageddon game won by Hou, as black, gave her the trophy. Her performance rating for the classical games was 2707.


title: Hou Yifan

text: From June 30 to July 3, Hou was part of the team representing China in the 4th Asian Martial Arts Games held in Incheon, South Korea. She won a gold medal in the classical portion of the event with a 6.5/7 score (+6 =1). In August, she took part in the Chess World Cup 2013 in Tromsø, Norway. She was one of four female participants in the 128-player single-elimination tournament. Her opponent for the first round was Alexei Shirov. After two draws in the classical portion of the match, they proceeded to tiebreaks. Hou won the first rapid game with white and lost the second with black. In the next tiebreaker set she lost both games resulting in her elimination.


title: Hou Yifan

text: As the winner of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2011–2012, Hou won the right to challenge Anna Ushenina in a 10-game match for the world title. Scheduled from September 10 to the 27th, the Women's World Chess Championship 2013 was played in Taizhou, Jiangsu, China. She won the match in 7 games with a 5.5–1.5 score (+4 =3, TPR 2730) regaining her championship title.


title: Hou Yifan

text: From 19 to 26 October, Hou played in the European Chess Club Cup 2013 as a member of team, Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo. She played board 1 with 5/6 score (+4 =2, TPR 2736) and for the second year in a row, her team swept the round robin competition with a 7–0 score.


title: Hou Yifan

text: From 12 to 18 December, she played in the SportAccord World Mind Games in the chess discipline. The tournament consisted of three events: rapid, blitz and the basque system. In the rapid event, Hou scored 5/7 (+3 = 4, TPR 2691) capturing the silver medal. In the blitz event, she won the gold medal with a 21.5/30 score (+19 −6 =5, ). Notable was that during the second day of the blitz event, Hou achieved a near perfect 9.5/10 score. In the final event played under the basque system, Hou won the silver medal on tiebreaks with a 7/10 score (+7 −3).


title: Hou Yifan

text: From 11 to 22 March, Hou competed in the 2014 China Chess Individual Tournament Group A in Xinghua, her birthplace. She again played against the men in the open section rather than in the women's section. She finished in 7th place with a 5.5/11 score (+2 −3 =6, TPR 2558).


title: Hou Yifan

text: From July 14 to July 24, Hou played in the grandmaster section of the prestigious Biel chess tournament. This was a six player category 19 event with an average rating of 2717 with Hou being the lowest rated player. She started with a win over Anish Giri and was tied for second entering the final round and could take joint first place by winning her final game against Pendyala Harikrishna. While she wound up losing the final game, Hou still had a successful tournament, finishing joint 3rd–5th with a 5/10 score (+2 −2 =6, TPR 2734).


title: Hou Yifan

text: From August 1 to August 14, Hou participated in 41st Chess Olympiad in Tromsø, Norway as board one of the top seeded Chinese Women's team. The team rattled off six straight wins before succumbing to the second seeded Russian team with Hou losing her individual game, as black, to Kateryna Lagno. She ended the Olympiad with a 7/9 score (+6 −1 = 2, TPR 2671) leading her team to the silver medal. Her own performance was good enough to receive the silver medal for board one.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou is the winner of FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2013–14. From April 8 to April 22, she played in the 4th stage in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. Opening with 3 straight victories, she dominated from start to finish. Several times as white she eschewed her regular 1.e4 opening move and began with 1.c4 and 1.g3. She finished in 1st place with an 8.5/11 score (+6 =5, TPR 2695). From June 18 to July 2, she played in the 5th stage in Lopota, Georgia. Leading from start to finish, she won with a 9/11 score (+7 = 4, TPR 2773), a full two points over her nearest competitors. From August 24 to September 6, she competed in the 6th and final stage in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. She finished joint first with Ju Wenjun with an 8.5/11 score (+6 =5, TPR 2686).


title: Hou Yifan

text: At the final leg, the tournament's official awards, Big and Small Cups of Grand Prix, designed and manufactured by the Lobortas Classic Jewelry House, were presented. As the winner of the 2013–2014 Grand Prix Series, Hou Yifan was solemnly awarded the Small Cup during the official closing ceremony of the tournament.


title: Hou Yifan

text: During September 13 to 21, she competed at the 18th European Club Cup held in Bilbao, Spain. Once again she was the top board for Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo winning the individual gold medal for her performance 5/6 (+4 =2, TPR 2749) while leading her team to a second-place finish.


title: Hou Yifan

text: With the postponement of the Women's World Chess Championship 2014 she played in the Corsican Chess Circuit in October and won, beating Sergey Fedorchuk in the final. This has been described as the most important tournament yet to be won by a female player other than Judit Polgár.


title: Hou Yifan

text: From December 11 to 18, Hou played in the 2014 SportAccord World Mind Games held in Beijing, China. The Mind Games consists of separate tournaments in 3 disciplines: rapid, blitz and basque. In the rapid event, she placed second capturing the silver medal, losing only to Valentina Gunina, the eventual event winner. Her performance was 5/7 (+4 −1 = 3, rapid TPR 2672). She won the gold medal in the blitz event with a 22.5/30 score (+20 −5 = 5, TPR 2718). Especially noteworthy in her blitz tournament was her performance pushed her official blitz rating to 2704, making her the second female player to cross the 2700 barrier in any rating format. In the final basque system event, Hou took home another gold medal with an 8.5/10 score (+7 =3).


title: Hou Yifan

text: When Hou turned twenty one in 2015 she lost her junior status. She ended the year, and her junior playing career, as the reigning Women's World Chess Champion, the 2nd highest rated female player, the highest rated girl, the 4th highest rated junior and the 71st highest overall rated active player with a FIDE rating of 2673.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou once again played in the 2015 edition of Tata Steel Chess Tournament held from January 15 to 25. She was the 12th seed out of 14 total participants in the Category 20 Master group and finished 11th with a 5/13 score(+1 −4 = 8, TPR 2670). While she performed approximately according to her rating, Hou had winning chances in a few of her games and even missed a drawing chance against world champion Magnus Carlsen after defending a difficult position as black for most of the game.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Shortly after, she returned to the scene of her greatest chess tournament triumph, the Gibraltar Chess Festival 2015 held from January 27 to February 4. Seeded 13th by rating, she placed joint 3rd–11th, 3rd by performance with a 7.5/10 score (+5 =5, TPR 2772) pushing her FIDE rating to 2686. She also won the 1st place prize for being the highest scoring female player. Her excellent performance in this event resulted in her rating surpassing Judit Polgár's classic rating for the first time in the March 2015 FIDE rating list, ending Polgár's 26 consecutive years reign as the top rated female player in the world. For the first time since Maia Chiburdanidze in January 1989 a single individual was both the top rated woman player and the reigning Women's World Chess Champion.


title: Hou Yifan

text: She played in the Hawaii Grandmaster Challenge 2015 in March, a two-day four player quadruple blitz and rapid round robin event. She began the first day with a 3.5/6 score before crushing her opponents the second day with five straight wins and a draw in the final game easily winning the event with a 9/12 score. Since this event conflicted with the Women's World Chess Championship 2015 she relinquished her title to Mariya Muzychuk at the conclusion of the Championship.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou played in the Nakhchivan Open 2015 in from May 1 to the 11th. Seeded 3rd by rating, she finished in a nine-way tie for joint 4th–12th with a 6/9 score (+5 −2 =2, TPR 2581).


title: Hou Yifan

text: She played in the 2015 edition of Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting which ran from June 27 to July 5. With an average rating of 2724, it qualified as a Category 20 supertournament. Hou finished in joint 7th/8th with a 2.5/7 score (−2 =5, TPR 2629)


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou has been chosen as the first FIDE Presidential nominee for Chess World Cup 2015 held in Baku from September 10 to October 5. She made it past the first round of a World Cup for the first time in her career before losing in the second round 1.5–2.5 to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov after the 1st set of rapid tiebreaks. Her performance rating was 2685 for the event.


title: Hou Yifan

text: From October 2 to October 15, Hou competed in the 1st leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2015–16 held in Monte Carlo, Monaco. She started the event slowly, with a 2.5/4 score going into the first rest day. This included a loss to rival Humpy Koneru before stringing together a streak of six wins, winning the tournament with one round to spare. Her final score was 9/11 (+8 −1 = 2, TPR 2766).


title: Hou Yifan

text: She participated in an exhibition match against Parimarjan Negi held in the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis from November 12 to the 15th. The four-day event showcased a different chess variant each day: Basque Chess, Rapid Chess960, Rapid Chess and Blitz Chess with each game played counting for 1 point in determining the winner. Hou easily won the match: 0–2 in Basque, 3.5–0.5 in Chess960, 3–1 in Rapid Chess, and 4.5–3.5 in Blitz with a total score of 11–7.


title: Hou Yifan

text: As part of the joint Russian-Chinese Match of Friendship chess festival held from December 13 to 15 held in Shanghai, China, Hou participated in an exhibition match with the GM Evgeniy Najer the 2015 European Champion. Playing a series of rapid and blitz games, she won quite convincingly with a 9.5 to 4.5 score.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In the last chess event of the year, the 2nd edition of the 2015 Qatar Masters Open held from December 19 to the 30th in Doha, Qatar, Hou was the 22nd highest rated player in the tournament but finished in 38th place with a 5.5/9 score (+3 −1 =5, TPR 2591). The result was still good enough to win the top women's prize by a full point.


title: Hou Yifan

text: For the third time, Hou competed in the top group of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament held from January 15 to 31. This year she was seeded 13th out of 14 participants in this Category 20 event. She started strongly, going +1 in her first six games before faltering with four losses in the following five games. She placed 12th with a 5/13 score(+1 −4 = 8, TPR 2672).


title: Hou Yifan

text: In early February, Hou played and won in a four-game match against Cristobal Henriquez Villagra in Punta Arenas. Billed as a Bicontinental Chess Match, it was scheduled to be played in two locations, but due to inclement weather, they were unable to play in Antarctica. She won the match with a 2.5–1.5 score(+2 −1 =1, TPR 2584).


title: Hou Yifan

text: Qualifying for the Women's World Chess Championship 2016, in March, as the winner of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2013–14, she reclaimed the World Championship title from Mariya Muzychuk in Lviv, Ukraine with a 6–3 score (+3 =6, TPR 2685).


title: Hou Yifan

text: From March 23–26 Hou played in a four player 3 round classical/3 round rapid robin tournament to determine the qualifier for the 4th edition of Norway Chess. She finished in 3rd place with a 1/3 score (−1 =2, TPR 2531) in the classical portion and 2/1 score (+2 −1, TPR 2716) in the rapid portion.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In May, Hou dropped out of the current Women's World Championship cycle, effectively relinquishing the crown. She explained her reasons in a Chessbase interview, mainly objecting to the format wherein the Women's World Champion is decided alternately by a knockout tournament and then a match. She also expressed her willingness to participate in the cycle if the format were amended to mirror that of the World Chess Championship.


title: Hou Yifan

text: She played in the Vugar Gashimov Memorial, a category 20 tournament held in, Shamkir Azerbaijan, from May 26 to June 4. She was the ninth seed out of ten participants and finished in last place with a 2.5/10 score (−4 = 5, TPR 2578)


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou played in the Eurasian Blitz Cup from June 17–20 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Seeded 17th on the strength of her 2704 blitz rating, she came in 29th place with a 12.5/22 score (+10 −7 = 5, TPR 2650). Among the female competitors, while having a superior performance rating, she came in second to Harika Dronavalli on tiebreaks.


title: Hou Yifan

text: At the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival, Hou finished with a score of 6/10 (the tournament was won by Hikaru Nakamura). Her round 7 win against the French master Borya Ider, in which she made an early positional sacrifice of queen for two minor pieces, was described as "truly astonishing" by organizer and chess journalist John Saunders. In the final round, she appeared to throw her game against Indian Grandmaster Lalith Babu, playing a ridiculous opening and resigning after 5 moves. She later explained that she was upset about being paired against other female players in 7 of her 9 previous games of a Swiss system tournament, however tournament organizer Brian Callaghan said the pairings were simply the result of a computer program.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou Yifan was one of 24 players selected to play in the FIDE Grand Prix 2017, a qualification stage for the World Chess Championship 2018. She reached position 17 in the final standings, and thus was not able to qualify for the Championship.


title: Hou Yifan

text: She declined to defend her title at the Women's World Chess Championship 2017, and as a result forfeited her title.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In April she participated at the Grenke Classic at Baden-Baden. She finished 5th out of eight players, beating Fabiano Caruana and drawing against Magnus Carlsen after having come close to winning.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In August, she was clear first at the Category 16 50th Biel Chess Festival with 6.5/9 points (+5 −1 =3, TPR 2810).


title: Hou Yifan

text: In September she competed in the Chess World Cup 2017, where she went out in a second round tiebreak to Levon Aronian, the eventual winner.


title: Hou Yifan

text: In January she competed in the Tata Steel tournament in Wijk aan Zee as the only woman in the field of 14 players, placing last with a score of 2.5/13 (+0−8=5).


title: Hou Yifan

text: From 31 March to 9 April, she participated in the 5th Grenke Chess Classic. She finished equal 8th–9th out of ten with a score of 3½/9 (+0 –2 =7).


title: Hou Yifan

text: Rated 2686 in the March 2015 FIDE rating list, Hou was the world no. 59 player and world no. 1 woman player (overtaking the recently retired Judit Polgár's rating for the first time). On 1 July 2006, she was the youngest ever player to enter the Top 50 Women (Number 8) and Top 20 Girls (Number 2) FIDE lists at age of 12 (rated 2488), since FIDE began releasing these lists in 2000.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Between the April 2006 and July 2006 FIDE rating lists, she gained an impressive 190 rating points from a rating of 2298 to a rating of 2488, which made her the eighth highest rated female player, and the second highest rated girl, in the world.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Four-time winner of the honorary Caissa Cup as the best female player of the year (2010, 2011, 2013, 2014). Chess Award of Caissa, designed and executed by artisans of the Lobortas Classic Jewelry House, was solemnly presented at the 40th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul on September 2, 2012, during a meeting of the Commission for Women's Chess with the participation of Susan Polgar chairing the commission.


title: Hou Yifan

text: Hou Yifan primarily plays 1.e4 as [[White and Black in chess|White]]. As Black, she usually plays the [[Sicilian Defence]] (including the [[Sicilian Defence, Najdorf Variation|Najdorf]] and [[Sicilian Defence, Dragon Variation|Dragon]] variations) as well as the [[French Defence]] against 1.e4, while against 1.d4 she plays the [[Nimzo-Indian]], [[Bogo-Indian Defence|Bogo-Indian]] and [[Queen's Indian]] defences.


title: Hou Yifan

text: On 25 January 2008, Hou as Black beat GM [[Gabriel Sargissian]] (2676) of Armenia, longtime second of [[Levon Aronian]], in the [[Corus chess tournament|Corus (Group B) tournament]], [[Wijk aan Zee]], Netherlands:


title: Hou Yifan

text: Yifan claimed that there are many reasons for the lack of female contenders at the chess top-level. She says there is a physical aspect to long chess games that might advantage men, and that men generally work harder at chess than women growing up. She uses Chinese girls as an example and points out that most prefer a balanced life, prioritizing things such as university and family life at the cost of working on chess. But she claims there also are external factors: girls playing chess growing up are only encouraged to compete for the girl's title, which might lower their motivation.


title: Raveena Tandon filmography

text: Raveena Tandon is an Indian actress known for her work in Hindi films. She made her acting debut in the 1991 action film "Patthar Ke Phool", which earned her the Filmfare Award for New Face of the Year. This was followed by a series of unsuccessful films including "Ek Hi Raasta" (1993) and "Parampara (1993 film)". In 1994, she appeared in eight Hindi films, most of them were commercial successes. Among these were two of the top-grossing films the romantic musical drama "Dilwale" and the action drama "Mohra". The success of the latter marked a turning point in her career, establishing Tandon as a leading actress in Hindi cinema. The same year, her performance in the drama "Laadla", earned her a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her other film was the comedy "Andaz Apna Apna", which though initially a box office disappointment, attained cult status over the years.


title: Raveena Tandon filmography

text: Tandon subsequently played leading roles in the action thrillers "Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi" (1996) and "Ziddi" (1997). Both films were among the highest grossing Bollywood films of their respective years. In 1998, she starred opposite Govinda in the commercially successful comedies "Dulhe Raja", and "Bade Miyan Chote Miyan". Tandon had five film releases in 1999. While the comedy "Anari No.1" was a commercial success, her other four releases that year performed poorly at the box office. Nevertheless, she received praise for her performance in the crime drama "Shool".


title: Raveena Tandon filmography

text: In the early 2000s, she ventured into more serious dramatic roles and turned towards arthouse cinema. She received critical acclaim for her performances in them. She won the National Film Award for Best Actress for playing a victim of domestic abuse in the 2001 social drama "Daman". The same year, her performance in the supernatural thriller "Aks" won her the Filmfare Special Performance Award. She received further praise for portraying a politician in Madhur Bhandarkar's 2003 drama "Satta". Later, she starred on the Sahara One television series "Sahib Biwi Gulam", Rituparno Ghosh's adaptation of Bimal Mitra's novel. After her marriage in 2004, she took a break from films, appearing occasionally on television. In 2012, she hosted a talk show titled "Issi Ka Naam Zindagi" on NDTV.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: Superman: Red Son is a three-issue prestige format comic book mini-series published by DC Comics that was released under their "Elseworlds" imprint in 2003. Author Mark Millar created the comic with the premise "What if Superman had been raised in the Soviet Union?" It received critical acclaim and was nominated for the 2004 Eisner Award for best limited series.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: The story mixes alternate versions of DC super-heroes with alternate-reality versions of real political figures such as Joseph Stalin and John F. Kennedy. The series spans approximately 1953-2001, save for a futuristic epilogue.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: In "Red Son", Superman's rocket ship lands on a Ukrainian collective farm rather than in Kansas. Instead of fighting for "truth, justice, and the American Way", Superman is described in Soviet radio broadcasts "as the Champion of the common worker who fights a never-ending battle for Stalin, socialism, and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact". His civilian identity is a state secret.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: Grant Morrison has given interviews about giving Mark Millar the idea of sending Superman back to the past, as was used in the end of "Red Son".


title: Superman: Red Son

text: Certain images from the series are taken from famous comic book covers or panels. A splash panel from the first issue references Superman's pose on the cover of "Superman" #1. Also, a panel showing the riots in the U.S. mimics the famous cover to "Action Comics" #1.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: The Soviet Union reveals Superman to the world in 1953. The news of a superpowered alien under Soviet control causes panic in the United States, shifting the focus of the Cold War arms race from nuclear weapons to metahumans. CIA agent James Olsen recruits Lex Luthor, a scientist employed by S.T.A.R. Labs, to destroy Superman. Luthor's first act is to cause "Sputnik 2" to plummet towards Metropolis. After Superman diverts the satellite away from the city, Luthor retrieves his genetic material and creates a monstrous clone of Superman, whom Lex Luthor names Superman 2.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: Meanwhile, Superman meets Wonder Woman at a diplomatic party, and she becomes smitten with him. Pyotr Roslov, the head of the NKVD and Joseph Stalin's illegitimate son, is angry that Superman has turned his father's attention away from him and ended his chances of advancement within the Soviet regime. Pyotr shoots a dissident couple in front of their son for printing anti-Superman propaganda. Stalin dies from cyanide poisoning, and Superman initially refuses command of the Communist Party. However, a chance meeting with Lana Lazarenko, his childhood sweetheart, changes his mind. Superman chooses to use his powers for the greater good and turn his country into a utopia.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: The U.S. government sends "Superman 2" to engage Superman, and their duel causes an accidental nuclear missile launch in Great Britain. The clone sacrifices itself to save millions. Luthor murders his research staff at S.T.A.R. Labs and founds LuthorCorp, dedicating his life to destroying Superman.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: By 1978, the United States is on the verge of social collapse whereas the prosperous Soviet Union has peacefully expanded its influence to nearly every corner of the globe. The cost of this progress is an increased infringement on individual liberties, with Superman fast becoming a Big Brother-like figure, and the introduction of a brain surgery technique that turns dissidents into obedient drones, or "Superman Robots". Superman now works with Wonder Woman to save lives as well as govern the Soviet state. Wonder Woman has become increasingly enamored of Superman, but he considers her simply as a comrade, and is oblivious to her love for him.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: Luthor plans to shrink Moscow, but this plan fails when Brainiac, his collaborator, shrinks Stalingrad instead. Superman intervenes and retrieves both Brainiac's central processing unit and the tiny city, putting an end to the Brainiac-Luthor cooperation. He is unable to restore Stalingrad and its inhabitants to their proper size. This becomes his one failure and a source of great guilt.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: Luthor's third plan involves the vigilante Batman, who was the boy orphaned by Pyotr. Batman joins forces with LuthorCorp and Pyotr, now head of the KGB. They capture Wonder Woman and use her as bait for Superman, hoping to sap his powers with rays that imitate sunlight from Superman's home planet. The plan works, but Superman convinces Wonder Woman to break free of the lasso that she is tied up with and destroy the generators running the lamps emitting the solar energy. She does, severely injuring herself in the process, but the lamps stop running and Superman's powers return. Scared that Superman was going to lobotomize him and turn him into a robot, Batman kills himself as a martyr to his cause. Pyotr is turned into a Superman robot, and Wonder Woman no longer has feelings for Superman, as he shows little to no regard for her injured condition.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: Luthor enacts his fourth plan when he finds a mysterious green lantern in an alien ship that crashed at Roswell, New Mexico. Brainiac is reprogrammed into Superman's aide, and the construction of a Fortress of Solitude, located in Siberia and referred to as "The Winter Palace", begins. Superman's reign continues with no crime, poverty, or unemployment, but with an ever-present state authority. Superman is committed to "winning the argument" with the U.S., and repeatedly refuses Brainiac's suggestions of an invasion. Stalingrad remains his one failure, now contained within a protective glass "bottle".


title: Superman: Red Son

text: In 2001, the U.S. elects Luthor and Olsen as President and Vice President, respectively. Using his scientific expertise, massive economic capital and dictatorial powers, Luthor returns prosperity to his country. This is only a part of a more general plan to provoke Superman into invading the United States. Luthor shows Olsen two of his greatest discoveries: the Phantom Zone, a place that super-hearing cannot reach; and the Green Lantern Corps.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: Luthor confronts Superman in the Winter Palace. Brainiac yanks Luthor deep into the recesses of the Fortress to be converted surgically into a Superman Robot, claiming that Lex would convince Superman to commit suicide in less than 14 minutes. Superman agrees that his hand has been forced, and prepares to attack.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: First Lady Lois Luthor visits Paradise Island to forge an alliance with the Amazon empire, now ruled by an embittered and vengeful Wonder Woman. Superman attacks the East Coast, confronting and defeating the Green Lantern Marine Corps, which is led by Colonel Hal Jordan. The Amazon forces, commanded by Wonder Woman, attack Superman but are quickly defeated, along with a collection of "super-menaces" (including the Atomic Skull, the Parasite and Doomsday) that Luthor had put together over the years. Brainiac's spaceship cuts the U.S. Pacific Fleet to pieces, and the two superbeings meet at the White House. They are greeted by Lois Luthor with the last weapon, a small note written by Lex that reads: "Why don't you just put the whole "world" in a "bottle", Superman?"


title: Superman: Red Son

text: Realizing he has meddled in affairs that he had no place in, Superman orders Brainiac to end the invasion. Brainiac, however, reveals it has "never" been under Superman's control, and instead attacks Superman with green radiation. Brainiac is shut down from inside by Luthor, who evaded the surgery. As the singularities powering Brainiac's ship threaten to collapse, Superman rockets it into space, where it explodes. The Earth is saved, but Superman is apparently dead.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: The Soviet Union falls into chaos, but is soon brought back under control thanks to the Batmen (resistance members who began wearing the costume after Batman's death). Luthor integrates many of Superman's and Brainiac's ideas into the new philosophy of "Luthorism" and forms a "Global United States". This becomes the defining moment for mankind's future as it enters an unprecedented age of peace and stability. A benevolent world government is formed and maintained. Luthor presides over a string of scientific achievements, including the curing of all known disease, and colonization of the solar system. Luthor lives for over 1,000 years.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: At Luthor's funeral, it is revealed that Superman survived the explosion of Brainiac's ship and is apparently immortal. Superman attends the funeral wearing a business suit and thick glasses essentially identical to the appearance of Clark Kent, an identity he never adopted in this timeline. Luthor's widow, Lois, sees this mysterious figure in the crowd and, other than an eerie sense of "deja vu", suspects nothing. Superman walks quietly away from the ceremony, planning to live among humans rather than ruling over them.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: Billions of years in the future, Earth is being torn apart by tidal stresses from the sun, which has become a red giant. Luthor's distant descendant, Jor-L, sends his infant son, Kal-L, rocketing back into the past. The final panels of the comic book depict the landing of Kal-L's timeship in a Ukrainian collective in 1938, effectively causing a predestination paradox (and, thus, making Superman a descendant of Luthor and Lois).


title: Superman: Red Son

text: In "The New 52" (a reboot of DC's continuity), the alternate Earth depicted in "Superman: Red Son" has been designated Earth-30. The Superman of Earth-30 also appeared in the "" series in 2007, in which he came into conflict with the Cold War U.S.-based Supermen of Earth-31 ("The Dark Knight Returns") and Earth-15 (Chris Kent). In 2008, Earth-30 and its Soviet Superman also appeared in the "Countdown to Final Crisis: The Search for Ray Palmer" storyline, where it was one of the alternate Earths visited by Jason Todd, Donna Troy and Kyle Rayner to locate Earth-0's absent Atom (Ray Palmer). Characters from "Superman: Red Son" also appeared in the "Action Comics" and "Detective Comics" tie-ins to the "Convergence" storyline, in which they are forced to fight against the heroes from the original Earth-Two's Metropolis. A promotional comic, "Kentucky Fried Chicken Presents: The Colonel Corps" had the Colonel Sanders of Earth-30 ("Comrade Sanders") joining with Colonels from other universes to take on Earth-3's evil Colonel Sanders. This Sanders wore an ushanka.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: In the alternate 1940 setting of "DC Comics Bombshells", Stargirl and Supergirl are both Soviet aviators in the Night Witches, which was seen as a nod to "Superman: Red Son".


title: Superman: Red Son

text: In March 2018, the Batman featured in this story made a cameo appearance in the sixth issue of the "" comic book series.


title: Superman: Red Son

text: Figures based on characters from the series include Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, President Superman and Green Lantern. A boxset was released in 2008 featuring Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and a remolded Bizarro.


title: Mirror neuron

text: A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Such neurons have been directly observed in human and primate species, and in birds.


title: Mirror neuron

text: In humans, brain activity consistent with that of mirror neurons has been found in the premotor cortex, the supplementary motor area, the primary somatosensory cortex, and the inferior parietal cortex. The function of the mirror system in humans is a subject of much speculation. Birds have been shown to have imitative resonance behaviors and neurological evidence suggests the presence of some form of mirroring system.


title: Mirror neuron

text: To date, no widely accepted neural or computational models have been put forward to describe how mirror neuron activity supports cognitive functions. The subject of mirror neurons continues to generate intense debate. In 2014, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B published a special issue entirely devoted to mirror neuron research. Some researchers speculate that mirror systems may simulate observed actions, and thus contribute to theory of mind skills, while others relate mirror neurons to language abilities. Neuroscientists such as Marco Iacoboni (UCLA) have argued that mirror neuron systems in the human brain help us understand the actions and intentions of other people. In a study published in March 2005 Iacoboni and his colleagues reported that mirror neuron activity could predict whether another person who was picking up a cup of tea planned to drink from it or clear it from the table. In addition, Iacoboni has argued that mirror neurons are the neural basis of the human capacity for emotions such as empathy.


title: Mirror neuron

text: There are scientists who express skepticism about the theories being advanced to explain the function of mirror neurons. In a 2013 article for "Wired", Christian Jarrett cautioned that:


title: Mirror neuron

text: In the 1980s and 1990s, neurophysiologists Giacomo Rizzolatti, Giuseppe Di Pellegrino, Luciano Fadiga, Leonardo Fogassi, and Vittorio Gallese at the University of Parma placed electrodes in the ventral premotor cortex of the macaque monkey to study neurons specialized in the control of hand and mouth actions; for example, taking hold of an object and manipulating it. During each experiment, the researchers allowed the monkey to reach for pieces of food, and recorded from single neurons in the monkey's brain, thus measuring the neuron's response to certain movements. They found that some neurons responded when the monkey observed a person picking up a piece of food, and also when the monkey itself picked up the food.


title: Mirror neuron

text: The discovery was initially submitted to "Nature", but was rejected for its "lack of general interest" before being published in a less competitive journal.


title: Mirror neuron

text: A few years later, the same group published another empirical paper, discussing the role of the mirror-neuron system in action recognition, and proposing that the human Broca's region was the homologue region of the monkey ventral premotor cortex.


title: Mirror neuron

text: While these papers reported the presence of mirror neurons responding to hand actions, a subsequent study by Pier Francesco Ferrari and colleagues described the presence of mirror neurons responding to mouth actions and facial gestures.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Further experiments confirmed that about 10% of neurons in the monkey inferior frontal and inferior parietal cortex have "mirror" properties and give similar responses to performed hand actions and observed actions. In 2002 Christian Keysers and colleagues reported that, in both humans and monkeys, the mirror system also responds to the sound of actions.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Reports on mirror neurons have been widely published and confirmed with mirror neurons found in both inferior frontal and inferior parietal regions of the brain. Recently, evidence from functional neuroimaging strongly suggests that humans have similar mirror neurons systems: researchers have identified brain regions which respond during both action and observation of action. Not surprisingly, these brain regions include those found in the macaque monkey. However, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can examine the entire brain at once and suggests that a much wider network of brain areas shows mirror properties in humans than previously thought. These additional areas include the somatosensory cortex and are thought to make the observer feel what it feels like to move in the observed way.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Many implicitly assume that the mirrorness of mirror neurons is due primarily to heritable genetic factors and that the genetic predisposition to develop mirror neurons evolved because they facilitate action understanding. In contrast, a number of theoretical accounts argue that mirror neurons could simply emerge due to learned associations, including the Hebbian Theory, the Associative Learning Theory, Canalization and Exaptation.


title: Mirror neuron

text: The first animal in which researchers have studied mirror neurons individually is the macaque monkey. In these monkeys, mirror neurons are found in the inferior frontal gyrus (region F5) and the inferior parietal lobule.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Mirror neurons are believed to mediate the understanding of other animals' behaviour. For example, a mirror neuron which fires when the monkey rips a piece of paper would also fire when the monkey sees a person rip paper, or hears paper ripping (without visual cues). These properties have led researchers to believe that mirror neurons encode abstract concepts of actions like 'ripping paper', whether the action is performed by the monkey or another animal.


title: Mirror neuron

text: The function of mirror neurons in macaques remains unknown. Adult macaques do not seem to learn by imitation. Recent experiments by Ferrari and colleagues suggest that infant macaques can imitate a human's face movements, though only as neonates and during a limited temporal window. Even if it has not yet been empirically demonstrated, it has been proposed that mirror neurons cause this behaviour and other imitative phenomena. Indeed, there is limited understanding of the degree to which monkeys show imitative behaviour.


title: Mirror neuron

text: In adult monkeys, mirror neurons may enable the monkey to understand what another monkey is doing, or to recognize the other monkey's action.


title: Mirror neuron

text: It is not normally possible to study single neurons in the human brain, so most evidence for mirror neurons in humans is indirect. Brain imaging experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have shown that the human inferior frontal cortex and superior parietal lobe are active when the person performs an action and also when the person sees another individual performing an action. It has been suggested that these brain regions contain mirror neurons, and they have been defined as the human mirror neuron system. More recent experiments have shown that even at the level of single participants, scanned using fMRI, large areas containing multiple fMRI voxels increase their activity both during the observation and execution of actions.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Neuropsychological studies looking at lesion areas that cause action knowledge, pantomime interpretation, and biological motion perception deficits have pointed to a causal link between the integrity of the inferior frontal gyrus and these behaviours. Transcranial magnetic stimulation studies have confirmed this as well. These results indicate the activation in mirror neuron related areas are unlikely to be just epiphenomenal.


title: Mirror neuron

text: A study published in April 2010 reports recordings from single neurons with mirror properties in the human brain. Mukamel "et al." (Current Biology, 2010) recorded from the brains of 21 patients who were being treated at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center for intractable epilepsy. The patients had been implanted with intracranial depth electrodes to identify seizure foci for potential surgical treatment. Electrode location was based solely on clinical criteria; the researchers, with the patients' consent, used the same electrodes to "piggyback" their research. The researchers found a small number of neurons that fired or showed their greatest activity both when the individual performed a task and when they observed a task. Other neurons had anti-mirror properties, that is, they responded when the participant performed an action but were inhibited when the participant saw that action.


title: Mirror neuron

text: The mirror neurons found were located in the supplementary motor area and medial temporal cortex (other brain regions were not sampled). For purely practical reasons, these regions are not the same as those in which mirror neurons had been recorded from in the monkey: researchers in Parma were studying the ventral premotor cortex and the associated inferior parietal lobe, two regions in which epilepsy rarely occurs, and hence, single cell recordings in these regions are not usually done in humans. On the other hand, no one has to date looked for mirror neurons in the supplementary motor area or the medial temporal lobe in the monkey. Together, this therefore does not suggest that humans and monkeys have mirror neurons in different locations, but rather that they may have mirror neurons both in the ventral premotor cortex and inferior parietal lobe, where they have been recorded in the monkey, and in the supplementary motor areas and medial temporal lobe, where they have been recorded from in human – especially because detailed human fMRI analyses suggest activity compatible with the presence of mirror neurons in all these regions.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Another study has suggested that human beings don't necessarily have more mirror neurons than monkeys, but instead that there is a core set of mirror neurons used in action observation and execution. However, for other proposed functions of mirror neurons the mirror system may have the ability to recruit other areas of the brain when doing its auditory, somatosensory, and affective components.


title: Mirror neuron

text: A number of studies have shown that rats and mice show signs of distress while witnessing another rodent receive footshocks. The group of Christian Keysers recorded from neurons while rats experienced pain or witnessed the pain of others, and has revealed the presence of pain mirror neurons in the rat's anterior cingulate cortex, i.e. neurons that respond both while an animal experiences pain and while witnessing the pain of others. Deactivating this region of the cingulate cortex led to reduced emotional contagion in the rats, so that observer rats showed reduced distress while witnessing another rat experience pain. The homologous part of the anterior cingulate cortex has been associated with empathy for pain in humans, suggesting a homology between the systems involved in emotional contagion in rodents and empathy/emotional contagion for pain in humans.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Although many in the scientific community have expressed excitement about the discovery of mirror neurons, there are scientists who have expressed doubts about both the existence and role of mirror neurons in humans. According to scientists such as Hickok, Pascolo, and Dinstein, it is not clear whether mirror neurons really form a distinct class of cells (as opposed to an occasional phenomenon seen in cells that have other functions), and whether mirror activity is a distinct type of response or simply an artifact of an overall facilitation of the motor system.


title: Mirror neuron

text: In 2008, Ilan Dinstein et al. argued that the original analyses were unconvincing because they were based on qualitative descriptions of individual cell properties, and did not take into account the small number of strongly mirror-selective neurons in motor areas. Other scientists have argued that the measurements of neuron fire delay seem not to be compatible with standard reaction times, and pointed out that nobody has reported that an interruption of the motor areas in F5 would produce a decrease in action recognition. (Critics of this argument have replied that these authors have missed human neuropsychological and TMS studies reporting disruption of these areas do indeed cause action deficits without affecting other kinds of perception.)


title: Mirror neuron

text: In 2009, Lingnau et al. carried out an experiment in which they compared motor acts that were first observed and then executed to motor acts that were first executed and then observed. They concluded that there was a significant asymmetry between the two processes that indicated that mirror neurons do not exist in humans. They stated "Crucially, we found no signs of adaptation for motor acts that were first executed and then observed. Failure to find cross-modal adaptation for executed and observed motor acts is not compatible with the core assumption


title: Mirror neuron

text: of mirror neuron theory, which holds that action recognition and understanding are based on motor simulation." However, in the same year, Kilner et al. showed that if goal directed actions are used as stimuli, both IPL and premotor regions show the repetition suppression between observation and execution that is predicted by mirror neurons.


title: Mirror neuron

text: In 2009, Greg Hickok published an extensive argument against the claim that mirror neurons are involved in action-understanding: "Eight Problems for the Mirror Neuron Theory of Action Understanding in Monkeys and Humans." He concluded that "The early hypothesis that these cells underlie action understanding is likewise an interesting and prima facie reasonable idea. However, despite its widespread acceptance, the proposal has never been adequately tested in monkeys, and in humans there is strong empirical evidence, in the form of physiological and neuropsychological (double-) dissociations, against the claim."


title: Mirror neuron

text: Vladimir Kosonogov sees another contradiction. The proponents of mirror neuron theory of action understanding postulate that the mirror neurons code the goals of others' actions because they are activated if the observed action is goal-directed. However, the mirror neurons are activated only when the observed action is goal-directed (object-directed action or a communicative gesture, which certainly has a goal too). How do they "know" that the definite action is goal-directed? At what stage of their activation do they detect a goal of the movement or its absence? In his opinion, the mirror neuron system can be activated only after the goal of the observed action is attributed by some other brain structures.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Neurophilosophers such as Patricia Churchland have expressed both scientific and philosophical objections to the theory that mirror neurons are responsible for understanding the intentions of others. In chapter 5 of her 2011 book, Braintrust, Churchland points out that the claim that mirror neurons are involved in understanding intentions (through simulating observed actions) is based on assumptions that are clouded by unresolved philosophical issues. She makes the argument that intentions are understood (coded) at a more complex level of neural activity than that of individual neurons. Churchland states that "A neuron, though computationally complex, is just a neuron. It is not an intelligent homunculus. If a neural network represents something complex, such as an intention [to insult], it must have the right input and be in the right place in the neural circuitry to do that."


title: Mirror neuron

text: Recently, Cecilia Heyes (Professor of Experimental Psychology, Oxford) has advanced the theory that mirror neurons are the byproduct of associative learning as opposed to evolutionary adaptation. She argues that mirror neurons in humans are the product of social interaction and not an evolutionary adaptation for action-understanding. In particular, Heyes rejects the theory advanced by V.S. Ramachandran that mirror neurons have been "the driving force behind the great leap forward in human evolution."


title: Mirror neuron

text: Human infant data using eye-tracking measures suggest that the mirror neuron system develops before 12 months of age and that this system may help human infants understand other people's actions. A critical question concerns how mirror neurons acquire mirror properties. Two closely related models postulate that mirror neurons are trained through Hebbian or Associative learning (see Associative Sequence Learning). However, if premotor neurons need to be trained by action in order to acquire mirror properties, it is unclear how newborn babies are able to mimic the facial gestures of another person (imitation of unseen actions), as suggested by the work of Meltzoff and Moore. One possibility is that the sight of tongue protrusion recruits an innate releasing mechanism in neonates. Careful analysis suggests that 'imitation' of this single gesture may account for almost all reports of facial mimicry by new-born infants.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Many studies link mirror neurons to understanding goals and intentions. Fogassi et al. (2005) recorded the activity of 41 mirror neurons in the inferior parietal lobe (IPL) of two rhesus macaques. The IPL has long been recognized as an association cortex that integrates sensory information. The monkeys watched an experimenter either grasp an apple and bring it to his mouth or grasp an object and place it in a cup.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Only the type of action, and not the kinematic force with which models manipulated objects, determined neuron activity. It was also significant that neurons fired before the monkey observed the human model starting the second motor act (bringing the object to the mouth or placing it in a cup). Therefore, IPL neurons "code the same act (grasping) in a different way according to the final goal of the action in which the act is embedded." They may furnish a neural basis for predicting another individual's subsequent actions and inferring intention.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Another possible function of mirror neurons would be facilitation of learning. The mirror neurons code the concrete representation of the action, i.e., the representation that would be activated if the observer acted. This would allow us to simulate (to repeat internally) the observed action implicitly (in the brain) to collect our own motor programs of observed actions and to get ready to reproduce the actions later. It is implicit training. Due to this, the observer will produce the action explicitly (in his/her behavior) with agility and finesse. This happens due to associative learning processes. The more frequently a synaptic connection is activated, the stronger it becomes.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Stephanie Preston and Frans de Waal, Jean Decety, and Vittorio Gallese and Christian Keysers have independently argued that the mirror neuron system is involved in empathy. A large number of experiments using fMRI, electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) have shown that certain brain regions (in particular the anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and inferior frontal cortex) are active when people experience an emotion (disgust, happiness, pain, etc.) and when they see another person experiencing an emotion.


title: Mirror neuron

text: David Freedberg and Vittorio Gallese have also put forward the idea that this function of the mirror neuron system is crucial for aesthetic experiences. Nevertheless, an experiment aimed at investigating the activity of mirror neurons in empathy conducted by Soukayna Bekkali and Peter Enticott at the University of Deakin yielded a different result. After analyzing the report's data, they came up with two conclusions about motor empathy and emotional empathy. First, there is no relationship between motor empathy and the activity of mirror neurons. Second, there is only weak evidence of these neurons' activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and no evidence of emotional empathy associated with mirror neurons in key brain regions (inferior parietal lobule: IPL). In other words, there has not been an exact conclusion about the role of mirror neurons in empathy and if they are essential for human empathy. However, these brain regions are not quite the same as the ones which mirror hand actions, and mirror neurons for emotional states or empathy have not yet been described in monkeys.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Christian Keysers at the Social Brain Lab and colleagues have shown that people who are more empathic according to self-report questionnaires have stronger activations both in the mirror system for hand actions and the mirror system for emotions, providing more direct support for the idea that the mirror system is linked to empathy.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Some researchers observed that the human mirror system does not passively respond to the observation of actions but is influenced by the mindset of the observer. Researchers observed the link of the mirror neurons during empathetic engagement in patient care.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Studies in rats have shown that the anterior cingulate cortex contains mirror neurons for pain, i.e. neurons responding both during the first-hand experience of pain and while witnessing the pain of others, and inhibition of this region leads to reduced emotional contagion in rats and mice, and reduced aversion towards harming others. This provides causal evidence for a link between pain mirror neurons, and emotional contagion and prosocial behavior, two phenomena associated with empathy, in rodents. That brain activity in the homologous brain region is associated with individual variability in empathy in humans suggests that a similar mechanism may be at play across mammals.


title: Mirror neuron

text: V. S. Ramachandran has speculated that mirror neurons may provide the neurological basis of human self-awareness. In an essay written for the Edge Foundation in 2009 Ramachandran gave the following explanation of his theory: "... I also speculated that these neurons can not only help simulate other people's behavior but can be turned 'inward'—as it were—to create second-order representations or meta-representations of your "own" earlier brain processes. This could be the neural basis of introspection, and of the reciprocity of self awareness and other awareness. There is obviously a chicken-or-egg question here as to which evolved first, but... The main point is that the two co-evolved, mutually enriching each other to create the mature representation of self that characterizes modern humans."


title: Mirror neuron

text: In humans, functional MRI studies have reported finding areas homologous to the monkey mirror neuron system in the inferior frontal cortex, close to Broca's area, one of the hypothesized language regions of the brain. This has led to suggestions that human language evolved from a gesture performance/understanding system implemented in mirror neurons. Mirror neurons have been said to have the potential to provide a mechanism for action-understanding, imitation-learning, and the simulation of other people's behaviour. This hypothesis is supported by some cytoarchitectonic homologies between monkey premotor area F5 and human Broca's area. Rates of vocabulary expansion link to the ability of children to vocally mirror non-words and so to acquire the new word pronunciations. Such speech repetition occurs automatically, fast and separately in the brain to speech perception. Moreover, such vocal imitation can occur without comprehension such as in speech shadowing and echolalia.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Further evidence for this link comes from a recent study in which the brain activity of two participants was measured using fMRI while they were gesturing words to each other using hand gestures with a game of charades – a modality that some have suggested might represent the evolutionary precursor of human language. Analysis of the data using Granger Causality revealed that the mirror-neuron system of the observer indeed reflects the pattern of activity in the motor system of the sender, supporting the idea that the motor concept associated with the words is indeed transmitted from one brain to another using the mirror system


title: Mirror neuron

text: The mirror neuron system seems to be inherently inadequate to play any role in syntax, given that this definitory property of human languages which is implemented in hierarchical recursive structure is flattened into linear sequences of phonemes making the recursive structure not accessible to sensory detection


title: Mirror neuron

text: The term is commonly used to refer to cases in which an individual, having observed a body movement, unintentionally performs a similar body movement or alters the way that a body movement is performed. Automatic imitation rarely involves overt execution of matching responses. Instead the effects typically consist of reaction time, rather than accuracy, differences between compatible and incompatible trials.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Research reveals that the existence of automatic imitation, which is a covert form of imitation, is distinct from spatial compatibility. It also indicates that, although automatic imitation is subject to input modulation by attentional processes, and output modulation by inhibitory processes, it is mediated by learned, long-term sensorimotor associations that cannot be altered directly by intentional processes. Many researchers believe that automatic imitation is mediated by the mirror neuron system. Additionally, there are data that demonstrate that our postural control is impaired when people listen to sentences about other actions. For example, if the task is to maintain posture, people do it worse when they listen to sentences like this: "I get up, put on my slippers, go to the bathroom." This phenomenon may be due to the fact that during action perception there is similar motor cortex activation as if a human being performed the same action (mirror neurons system).


title: Mirror neuron

text: In contrast with automatic imitation, motor mimicry is observed in (1) naturalistic social situations and (2) via measures of action frequency within a session rather than measures of speed and/or accuracy within trials.


title: Mirror neuron

text: The integration of research on motor mimicry and automatic imitation could reveal plausible indications that these phenomena depend on the same psychological and neural processes. Preliminary evidence however comes from studies showing that social priming has similar effects on motor mimicry.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Nevertheless, the similarities between automatic imitation, mirror effects, and motor mimicry have led some researchers to propose that automatic imitation is mediated by the mirror neuron system and that it is a tightly controlled laboratory equivalent of the motor mimicry observed in naturalistic social contexts. If true, then automatic imitation can be used as a tool to investigate how the mirror neuron system contributes to cognitive functioning and how motor mimicry promotes prosocial attitudes and behavior.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Meta-analysis of imitation studies in humans suggest that there is enough evidence of mirror system activation during imitation that mirror neuron involvement is likely, even though no published studies have recorded the activities of singular neurons. However, it is likely insufficient for motor imitation. Studies show that regions of the frontal and parietal lobes that extend beyond the classical mirror system are equally activated during imitation. This suggests that other areas, along with the mirror system are crucial to imitation behaviors.


title: Mirror neuron

text: It has also been proposed that problems with the mirror neuron system may underlie cognitive disorders, particularly autism. However the connection between mirror neuron dysfunction and autism is tentative and it remains to be demonstrated how mirror neurons are related to many of the important characteristics of autism.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Some researchers claim there is a link between mirror neuron deficiency and autism. EEG recordings from motor areas are suppressed when someone watches another person move, a signal that may relate to mirror neuron system. This suppression was less in children with autism. Although these findings have been replicated by several groups, other studies have not found evidence of a dysfunctional mirror neuron system in autism. In 2008, Oberman et al. published a research paper that presented conflicting EEG evidence. Oberman and Ramachandran found typical mu-suppression for familiar stimuli, but not for unfamiliar stimuli, leading them to conclude that the mirror neuron system of children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) was functional, but less sensitive than that of typical children. Based on the conflicting evidence presented by mu-wave suppression experiments, Patricia Churchland has cautioned that mu-wave suppression results cannot be used as a valid index for measuring the performance of mirror neuron systems. Recent research indicates that mirror neurons do not play a role in autism:


title: Mirror neuron

text: Some anatomical differences have been found in the mirror neuron related brain areas in adults with autism spectrum disorders, compared to non-autistic adults. All these cortical areas were thinner and the degree of thinning was correlated with autism symptom severity, a correlation nearly restricted to these brain regions. Based on these results, some researchers claim that autism is caused by impairments in the mirror neuron system, leading to disabilities in social skills, imitation, empathy and theory of mind.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Many researchers have pointed out that the "broken mirrors" theory of autism is overly simplistic, and mirror neurons alone cannot explain the differences found in individuals with autism. First of all, as noted above, none of these studies were direct measures of mirror neuron activity - in other words fMRI activity or EEG rhythm suppression do not unequivocally index mirror neurons. Dinstein and colleagues found normal mirror neuron activity in people with autism using fMRI. In individuals with autism, deficits in intention understanding, action understanding and biological motion perception (the key functions of mirror neurons) are not always found, or are task dependent. Today, very few people believe an all-or-nothing problem with the mirror system can underlie autism. Instead, "additional research needs to be done, and more caution should be used when reaching out to the media."


title: Mirror neuron

text: Research from 2010 concluded that autistic individuals do not exhibit mirror neuron dysfunction, although the small sample size limits the extent to which these results can be generalized.


title: Mirror neuron

text: In Philosophy of mind, mirror neurons have become the primary rallying call of simulation theorists concerning our "theory of mind." "Theory of mind" refers to our ability to infer another person's mental state (i.e., beliefs and desires) from experiences or their behaviour.


title: Mirror neuron

text: There are several competing models which attempt to account for our theory of mind; the most notable in relation to mirror neurons is simulation theory. According to simulation theory, theory of mind is available because we subconsciously empathize with the person we're observing and, accounting for relevant differences, imagine what we would desire and believe in that scenario. Mirror neurons have been interpreted as the mechanism by which we simulate others in order to better understand them, and therefore their discovery has been taken by some as a validation of simulation theory (which appeared a decade before the discovery of mirror neurons). More recently, Theory of Mind and Simulation have been seen as complementary systems, with different developmental time courses.


title: Mirror neuron

text: At the neuronal-level, in a 2015 study by Keren Haroush and Ziv Williams using jointly interacting primates performing an iterated prisoner's dilemma game, the authors identified neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex that selectively predicted an opponent's yet unknown decisions or covert state of mind. These "other-predictive neurons" differentiated between self and other decisions and were uniquely sensitive to social context, but they did not encode the opponent's observed actions or receipt of reward. These cingulate cells may therefore importantly complement the function of mirror neurons by providing additional information about other social agents that is not immediately observable or known.


title: Mirror neuron

text: A series of recent studies conducted by Yawei Cheng, using a variety of neurophysiological measures, including MEG, spinal reflex excitability, electroencephalography, have documented the presence of a gender difference in the human mirror neuron system, with female participants exhibiting stronger motor resonance than male participants.


title: Mirror neuron

text: In another study, sex-based differences among mirror neuron mechanisms was reinforced in that the data showed enhanced empathetic ability in females relative to males. During an emotional social interaction, females showed a greater ability in emotional perspective taking than did males when interacting with another person face-to-face. However, in the study, data showed that when it came to recognizing the emotions of others, all participants' abilities were very similar and there was no key difference between the male and female subjects.


title: Mirror neuron

text: Baland Jalal and V. S. Ramachandran have hypothesized that the mirror neuron system is important in giving rise to the intruder hallucination and out-of-body experiences during sleep paralysis. According to this theory, sleep paralysis leads to disinhibition of the mirror neuron system, paving the way for hallucinations of human-like shadowy beings. The deafferentation of sensory information during sleep paralysis is proposed as the mechanism for such mirror neuron disinhibition. The authors suggest that their hypothesis on the role of the mirror neuron system could be tested:


title: Mirror neuron

text: Recent research, which measured mu-wave suppression, suggests that mirror neuron activity is positively correlated with psychotic symptoms (i.e., greater mu suppression/mirror neuron activity was highest among subjects with the greater severity of psychotic symptoms). Researchers concluded that "higher mirror neuron activity may be the underpinning of schizophrenia sensory gating deficits and may contribute to sensory misattributions particularly in response to socially relevant stimuli, and be a putative mechanism for delusions and hallucinations."


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Inflammation of the geniculate ganglion of the facial nerve is a late consequence of "varicella zoster" virus (VZV) known as Ramsay Hunt syndrome (RHS), commonly known as herpes zoster oticus. In regards with the frequency, less than 1% of varicella zoster infections involve the facial nerve and result in RHS. It is traditionally defined as a triad of ipsilateral facial paralysis, otalgia, and vesicles close to the ear and auditory canal. Due to its closeness to the vestibulocochlear nerve, the virus can spread and cause hearing loss, tinnitus (hearing noises that are not causes by outside sounds), and vertigo. It is common for diagnoses to be overlooked or delayed, which can raise the likelihood of long-term consequences. It is more complicated than Bell's palsy. Therapy aims to shorten its overall length, while also providing pain relief and averting any consequences.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Early symptoms include intense pain in one ear, the jaw on one side or the neck on one side which may precede the acute facial paralysis by a week or more.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Because the vestibulocochlear nerve is in proximity to the geniculate ganglion, it may also be affected and patients may also experience:


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: The varicella zoster virus infects people and results in a distributed vesicular rash with fever, known as chickenpox. Respiratory droplets are the main method of virus transmission during the acute stage of the infection. After it subsides, it stays dormant in nerve cells in the body. It may reactivate under conditions of physiological stress or if the immune system is suppressed in any way (for example during an illness or undergoing chemotherapy), resulting in herpes zoster, also known as shingles or Ramsay Hunt syndrome when facial paralysis in involved. If the nerve cells affected lie within the facial nerves, it causes the symptoms described above.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Ramsay Hunt Syndrome Type 2 is estimated to account for 12% of all facial nerve paralysis. It occurs in both immunocompetent and immunocompromised individuals with immunocompromised patients often having more severe disease presentation. RHS may occur in any age group with cases reported in patients ranging in age from 3 months to 82 years.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: The affected ganglion is responsible for the movements of facial muscles, the touch sensation of a part of ear and ear canal, the taste function of the frontal two-thirds of the tongue, and the moisturization of the eyes and the mouth. The syndrome specifically refers to the combination of this entity with weakness of the muscles activated by the facial nerve. In isolation, the latter is called Bell's palsy.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: However, as with shingles, the lack of lesions does not definitely exclude the existence of a herpes infection. Even before the eruption of vesicles, varicella zoster virus can be detected from the skin of the ear.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Ramsay Hunt Syndrome Type 2 can be diagnosed based on clinical features; however, in ambiguous cases, PCR or direct immunofluorescent assay of vesicular fluid can help with the diagnosis. Laboratory studies such as WBC count, ESR and electrolytes can distinguish infectious versus inflammatory etiologies.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: On a physical exam, look for vesicular exanthema on the external auditory canal, concha and or pinna. Dry eyes with possible lower cornea epithelium damage due to incomplete closure of eyelids. It is possible to have Ramsay Hunt Syndrome Type 2 without an external rash present. This is called "RHS sine herpete" and may occur in up to 30% of patients.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Ramsay Hunt Syndrome type 2 can usually be diagnosed based on clinical features. However, for suspected cases with unclear presentation, varicella zoster virus can be isolated from vesicle fluid. Tear culture PCR can have positive varicella zoster virus. However, 25-35% of patients with Bell's palsy can have false positive varicella zoster virus detected in tears. If central nervous system complications such as meningitis, ventriculitis or meningoencephalitis are suspected, prompt lumbar puncture with spinal fluid analysis and imaging (CT head) are recommended.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: An MRI with contrast may be ordered if the diagnosis is ambiguous so as to rule out other causes of acute facial paralysis such as a stroke, Lyme disease, multiple sclerosis, cancer or tumors. This test is most commonly ordered if the patient presents atypically with RHS sine herpete.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Shingles is prevented by immunizing against the causal virus, varicella zoster, using a zoster vaccine. Vaccination is recommended for adults 50 and older. Two versions of the vaccine are available, the live attenuated Zostavax (now discontinued in the US, essentially a larger-dose chickenpox vaccine) and the protein subunit Shingrix.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Treatments for Ramsey Hunt Syndrome Type 2 are used to reduce further damage caused by the viral infection. These medications will not reverse any damage that has already occurred at the time that they are prescribed. Initial treatment with a corticosteroid such as prednisone and an antiviral drug such as acyclovir, valacyclovir or famciclovir for 5 to 7 days is standard; however, some studies have shown later damage to the facial nerve and recommend 21 days of antivirals. Studies indicate that treatment started within 72 hours of the onset of facial paralysis improves the chances of the patient experiencing significant recovery. Chances of recovery appear to decrease when treatment is delayed. Delay of treatment may result in permanent facial nerve paralysis. However, some studies demonstrate that even when steroids are started promptly, only 22% of all patients achieve full recovery of facial paralysis. Treatment apparently has no effect on the recovery of hearing loss.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Meclizine, benzodiazepines such as diazepam, and vestibular therapy are sometimes used to treat the vertigo.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: During the acute recovery phase, the eye on the affected side of the face may not blink completely or at all and may not close tightly or at all when sleeping. If the eye is dry or feels irritated, this is a strong indication that the eye is not properly blinking or closing completely. Using artificial tears every 5 to 20 minutes while awake and protecting the eye while asleep are very important to maintaining the health of the eye. While asleep, applying overnight eye gel and using sensitive skin medical tape or an eye patch to keep the eye closed or using a moisture chamber can protect the eye. Taking these precautions is extremely important to preserve the health and functionality of the eye and prevent corneal abrasions and corneal ulcers.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Nerve pain associated with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome may be extreme and centered in the ear, neck, cheek, jaw and face. This nerve pain may not respond well to standard pain treatments including NSAIDS and opioids. Medication specifically for nerve pain such as tricyclic antidepressants and gabapentin have been shown to be effective for the neuropathic pain and post-herpetic neuralgia common with RHS.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Physical therapy, excessive movement or electrical stimulation practiced during the first year of recovery greatly increase the chances of long term complications, including hyperactive muscles and synkinesis, both of which are permanent. The most common form of synkinesis for Ramsay Hunt Syndrome patients involves the eye being connected to the mouth (i.e. blinking while speaking, tearing while eating) and chin dimpling (chin dimples forming when speaking). Many forms of synkinesis can be managed with use of medical Botox administered by a qualified doctor.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Overall between 30% and 70% of Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2 patients recover most functionality depending on early diagnosis and treatment with chances of recovery dropping to 50% if treatment is delayed beyond 72 hours.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Once the active infection has been cleared with antivirals, the facial nerves will begin to regrow at approximately 1mm per day. The recovery process for Ramsay Hunt syndrome is significantly longer than Bell's palsy. On average, Ramsay Hunt syndrome patients begin to see their symptoms resolve between 5 and 12 months post diagnosis and can expect to see continued resolution of symptoms for up to 2 years post diagnosis. Occasionally, patients may experience minor improvements beyond 2 years. The order in which symptoms resolve is highly individual. Although most patients will experience some recovery; complete recoveries with no lingering symptoms are in the minority. The main factors affecting the overall prognosis are the severity of symptoms at onset, the age and general health of the patient and the timing of initial treatments


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: Some patients report an increased sensitivity to barometric pressure with changes in weather patterns causing pain on the affected side of the face.


title: Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2

text: In 10 June 2022 Canadian singer Justin Bieber announced that that he had been diagnosed with the condition. In a video posted on Instagram he said that the virus had affected nerves in his ear and face, and that his right eye was not blinking. He has since entered treatment.


title: Launch vehicle

text: A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and systems such as vehicle assembly and fueling. Launch vehicles are engineered with advanced aerodynamics and technologies, which contribute to large operating costs.


title: Launch vehicle

text: An orbital launch vehicle must lift its payload at least to the boundary of space, approximately and accelerate it to a horizontal velocity of at least . Suborbital vehicles launch their payloads to lower velocity or are launched at elevation angles greater than horizontal.


title: Launch vehicle

text: Practical orbital launch vehicles are multistage rockets which use chemical propellants such as solid fuel, liquid hydrogen, kerosene, liquid oxygen, or Hypergolic propellants.


title: Launch vehicle

text: Launch vehicles are classified by their orbital payload capacity, ranging from small-, medium-, heavy- to super-heavy lift.


title: Launch vehicle

text: Sounding rockets are similar to small-lift launch vehicles, however they are usually even smaller and do not place payloads into orbit. A modified SS-520 sounding rocket was used to place a 4-kilogram payload (TRICOM-1R) into orbit in 2018.