The studies in this thesis examine whether humans have developed a specialized neural network to process biological stimuli. It is known that humans imitate and that such non- verbal behaviour is important for social well-being. However, since decades it has been an endeavour to answer the question whether imitation is an innate behaviour, which has evolved through natural selection or whether imitation is learned by experience throughout the lifespan. The present thesis includes four behavioural and two imaging studies, which are aimed at answering this question.
