Empathy examined through the neural mechanisms involved in imagining how I feel versus how you feel pain

Abstract

Perspective-taking is a stepping stone to human empathy. When empathizing with another individual, one can imagine how the other perceives the situation and feels as a result. To what extent does imagining the other differs from imagining oneself in similar painful situations? In this functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, participants were shown pictures of people with their hands or feet in painful or non-painful situations and instructed to imagine and rate the level of pain perceived from different perspectives. Both the Self's and the Other's perspectives were associated with activation in the neural network involved in pain processing, including the parietal operculum, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC; BA32) and anterior insula. However, the Self-perspective yielded higher pain ratings and involved the pain matrix more extensively in the secondary somatosensory cortex, the ACC (BA 24a /24b ), and the insula proper. Adopting the perspective of the Other was associated with specific increase in the posterior cingulate/precuneus and the right temporo-parietal junction. These results show the similarities between Self-and Other-pain representation, but most interestingly they also highlight some distinctiveness between these two representations, which is a crucial aspect of human empathy. It may be what allows us to distinguish empathic responses to others versus our own personal distress. These findings are consistent with the view that empathy does not involve a complete Self-Other merging.

A Social-Neuroscience Perspective on Empathy

“…There is strong evidence from fMRI studies, as well as from lesion studies in neurological patients, that the right temporo-parietal junction plays a critical role for the sense of self-agency (Decety & Sommerville, 2003). It is worth noting that adopting the perspective of another person to imagine his or her emotional reactions (Ruby & Decety, 2004) or to imagine his or her pain (Jackson et al, 2006) was associated with specific increase in Fig. 1.…”

“…Participants then had to rate the level of perceived pain according to the different perspectives (Jackson, Brunet, Meltzoff, & Decety, 2006). Both the selfand the other perspectives were associated with activation in the neural network involved in pain processing-including the parietal operculum, the ACC, and the anterior insula.…”

Virtual reality applications in forensic psychiatry

“…Empathy is a complex cognitive and emotional skill, generally defined as the ability to subjectively experience the feelings of another person. This ability likely stems from a specific and valid reading of emotional reactions manifested by others [10]. Lack of empathy, as a situational or permanent symptom, appears to be particularly important in sexual offending and psychopathic behaviours.…”

Fibromyalgia patients and controls are equally accurate in detecting tactile stimuli while observing another in pain: an experimental study

“…Moreover, neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies have demonstrated that observing pain in others may activate brain areas similar to those activated when observers experience pain themselves (Jackson, Brunet, Meltzoff, &Decety, 2006;Osborn & Derbyshire, 2010). For example, those who experience vicarious pain (that is, an actual somatosensory experience in response to the observation of pain) show a hyperactivity of motor mirror neurons (enhanced motor-evoked potentials) to the observation of a needle penetrating the hand, relative to the needle having not yet penetrated the hand, as compared with controls (Fitzgibbon, Enticott, Bradshaw, Giummarra, Chou, Georgiou-Karistianis, & Fitzgerald, 2012a).…”