Recent studies in cognitive neuroscience have suggested that the integration of information about the internal bodily state and the external environment is crucial for the experience of emotion. Extensive overlap between the neural mechanisms underlying the subjective emotion and those involved in interoception (perception of that which is arising from inside the body) has been identified. However, the mechanisms of interaction between the neural substrates of interoception and emotional experience remain unclear. We examined the common and distinct features of the neural activity underlying evaluation of emotional and bodily state using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The right anterior insular cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) were identified as commonly activated areas. As both of these areas are considered critical for interoceptive awareness, these results suggest that attending to the bodily state underlies awareness of one's emotional state. Uniquely activated areas involved in the evaluation of emotional state included the temporal pole, posterior and anterior cingulate cortex, medial frontal gyrus, and inferior frontal gyrus. Also the precuneus was functionally associated with activity of the right anterior insular cortex and VMPFC when evaluating emotional state. Our findings indicate that activation in these areas and the precuneus are functionally associated for accessing interoceptive information and underpinning subjective experience of the emotional state. Thus, awareness of one's own emotional state appears to involve the integration of interoceptive information with an interpretation of the current situation.

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To recognize whether another person's action results in a good or bad outcome is imperative for social learning, as well as for understanding the behavior of others in a broad context. Recent studies have reported that a scalp-surface event-related potential (ERP) called medial-frontal negativity (MFN), considered to be an index of negative reward processing, is generated when perceiving not only one's own losses, but also those of others. This suggests that the same neural mechanisms operate in monitoring one's own actions and in perceiving the consequences of the actions of others. To further elucidate the properties of this "observational" MFN, this study examined whether its amplitude differs with different observational targets. In a gambling task, participants observed the performances of non-self agents: a human friend and PC programs. The outcomes of the decisions of these agents were not associated with the participants' own benefits. ERP results showed that the MFN-like pattern was significantly elicited only when observing the outcomes of decisions made by human agents. Furthermore, self-reported measures of empathy were positively associated with the magnitude of the observational MFN. These findings suggest that the neural activity in non-self reward processing reflects a socioemotional state generated by the target of observation, as well as an empathetic trait of the individual.

Along with expanding the understanding of the human 'social brain', a new challenge for neuroscience is to elucidate the nature of individual differences in social competence. Here we report a neural index of gender difference in empathy-related processing in a complex social situation. Using electroencephalography, we measured the neural activity of perceptions to one's own and another's monetary gain or loss, while individuals played a 'competitive' two-person gambling game, in which one's monetary gain resulted in the other's loss. The medial-frontal negativity (MFN), a component within 300 ms latency reflecting an emotional categorization of the event, showed a significant gender difference in perceiving an opponent's, but not a self-performed outcome. When females perceive the opponent's outcomes, the MFN was elicited, indicating that another's loss was categorized as negative, even though it resulted in a benefit to them. On the contrary, the males did not elicit discernable MFN to the opponent's outcomes. Together with the fact that the affect score has a negative linear correlation with the MFN, this indicated that the MFN was sensitive to socio-emotional processing. These results suggest that individual differences in complex social behavior result from rapid neural activity in response to external stimuli.