Mirror Neurons, Dalai Lama and a few questions

Recently watched this video on youtube. Ramachandran briefly talked about his work on mirror neurons seeking a response from Dalai Lama. Dalai Lama asks a very insightful question.  It goes somewhat like this - "Do the mirror neurons fire in your brain merely by looking at another person being subjected to a sensory experience, or must you be watching attentively for this to happen?"  Ramachandran says you must be watching attentively. This means that if you are watching mindlessly, it may not happen.

The two videos give rise to many other questions.  I am listing the questions in the hope that some of you who may have explored this body of knowledge in depth, will be able to reply.

• Is vision central to the working of mirror neurons?  What happens to a blind person who can not see what is being done and to which part of another person's body, if the other person does not provide any auditory clues like a sigh or a cry of pain?  What if he does?
• Will the mirror neurons also fire if you are not watching the real action but a video of it?  Cinema goers  may feel that empathy is more pronounced in this case.  Is it merely because of the focused attention or do the dramatization, the closeup look and the appropriate background music also help?
• There are means other than vision through which we can make another person feel some of what we are feeling.  For example a blood curdling shriek, or a recording of it, may evoke the same horror in the listener that the person who shrieked felt or acted out.  It would seem that both sight and sound can do this. Is there any other way in which the empathetic feelings be evoked in another person?
• Can the mirror neurons make me feel the Buddha kind of peace if I keep attentively looking at an idol of meditating Buddha?  That is, can mirror neurons mimic the inner feelings of the observed person as reflected on his face?
• When another person is touched he can also feel the texture, temperature of the object touching him as well how hard it is pressing against his skin. Can these feelings get conveyed to the attentive observer?
• Many people are reported to have had out of body experiences (OBE).  It may be taken that though they were receiving sensory inputs of sight and sound, their whole body was anesthetized.  It will be interesting to ask them if they felt all the sensations of the people whom they saw while having this OBE.
• What happens if you have your hand anesthetized and watch it being tickled?