Effects of Being Imitated on Motor Responses Evoked by Pain Observation: Exerting Control Determines Action Tendencies When Perceiving Pain in Others

Coster, Lize De; Andres, Michaël; Braß, Marcel

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.5044-13.2014

Cited by 17 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The current findings can be compared with those of a recent paper demonstrating that corticospinal excitability during the observation of painful stimuli applied to another's hand was increased when that hand imitated the participant's actions, compared with when it did not [56]. The authors suggested that being imitated by the hand gave the participant a sense of control over the hand and that this increased corticospinal excitability.…”

Section: (C) General Discussionsupporting

confidence: 51%

Self–other control processes in social cognition: from imitation to empathy

Guzman

Bird

Banissy

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

117

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One contribution of 16 to a theme issue 'Understanding self and other: from origins to disorders'. We review the evidence that an ability to achieve a precise balance between representing the self and representing other people is crucial in social interaction. This ability is required for imitation, perspective-taking, theory of mind and empathy; and disruption to this ability may contribute to the symptoms of clinical and sub-clinical conditions, including autism spectrum disorder and mirror-touch synaesthesia. Moving beyond correlational approaches, a recent intervention study demonstrated that training participants to control representations of the self and others improves their ability to control imitative behaviour, and to take another's visual perspective. However, it is unclear whether these effects apply to other areas of social interaction, such as the ability to empathize with others. We report original data showing that participants trained to increase self-other control in the motor domain demonstrated increased empathic corticospinal responses (Experiment 1) and self-reported empathy (Experiment 2), as well as an increased ability to control imitation. These results suggest that the ability to control self and other representations contributes to empathy as well as to other types of social interaction.

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Section: (C) General Discussionsupporting

confidence: 51%

Self–other control processes in social cognition: from imitation to empathy

Guzman

Bird

Banissy

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

117

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We found no significant difference between the painful and the pain-free lifting techniques at the group level but corticomotor excitability was modulated by the extent to which the participants perceived the actor's pain (see 3.2). This differs from previous studies which found a general reduction of corticomotor excitability in the contralateral muscle when participants observed others in pain (Avenanti et al, 2005;Avenanti et al, 2006;Minio-Paluello et al, 2006;Avenanti et al, 2009a;Minio-Paluello et al, 2009;Avenanti et al, 2010;De Coster et al, 2014;Mahayana et al, 2014). However, all previous studies examining pain perception in others used an exogenous "flesh and bone" pain stimulus (i.e.…”

Section: Corticomotor Excitabilitycontrasting

confidence: 83%

“…However, all previous studies examining pain perception in others used an exogenous "flesh and bone" pain stimulus (i.e. a video clip showing a needle deeply penetrating the right first dorsal interosseous while the hand is passive) (Avenanti et al, 2005;Avenanti et al, 2006;Minio-Paluello et al, 2006;Avenanti et al, 2009a;Minio-Paluello et al, 2009;Avenanti et al, 2010;De Coster et al, 2014;Mahayana et al, 2014). Also, in all of these previous studies the actor's hand did not produce any reaction to pain or withdrawal movement.…”

Section: Corticomotor Excitabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…TMS experiments have demonstrated that painful stimuli (i.e. application of capsaicin or heat) induced a massive inhibition of corticomotor excitability (Farina et al, 2001;Farina et al, 2003;Svensson et al, 2003;Urban et al, 2004;Dube & Mercier, 2011;De Coster et al, 2014;Mahayana et al, 2014). However, not many TMS studies have investigated the perception of pain experienced by others and all previous studies used similar exogenous stimuli where a passive hand was injured by an external object.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Observing back pain provoking lifting actions modulates corticomotor excitability of the observer's primary motor cortex

2017

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Observing another person experiencing exogenously inflicted pain (e.g. by a sharp object penetrating a finger) modulates the excitability of the observer' primary motor cortex (M1). By contrast, far less is known about the response to endogenously evoked pain such as sudden back pain provoked by lifting a heavy object. Here, participants (n=26) observed the lifting of a heavy object. During this action the actor (1) flexed and extended the legs (LEG), (2) flexed and extended the back (BACK) or (3) flexed and extended the back which caused visible pain (BACKPAIN). Corticomotor excitability was measured by applying a single transcranial magnetic stimulation pulse to the M1 representation of the muscle erector spinae and participants scored their perception of the actor's pain on the numeric pain rating scale (NPRS). The participants scored vicarious pain as highest during the BACKPAIN condition and lowest during the LEG condition. MEP size was significantly lower for the LEG than the BACK and BACKPAIN condition. Although we found no statistical difference in the motor-evoked potential (MEP) size between the conditions BACK and BACKPAIN, there was a significant correlation between the difference in NPRS scores between the conditions BACKPAIN and BACK and the difference in MEP size between these conditions. Participants who believed the vicarious pain to be much stronger in the BACKPAIN than in the BACK condition also exhibited higher MEPs for the BACKPAIN than the BACK condition. Our results indicate that observing how others lift heavy objects facilitates motor representations of back muscles in the observer. Modulation occurs in a movement-specific manner and is additionally modulated by the extent to which the participants perceived the actor's pain. Our findings suggest that movement observation might be a promising paradigm to study the brain's response to back pain.

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“…Notably, such synesthesia conditions can be construed as a condition of loosened bodily boundaries between self and other (Ward & Banissy, 2015). Third, illusions of ownership of other's hand were found to modulate excitability of primary motor cortex when observing that hand being painfully stimulated (Avenanti, Bueti, Galati, & Aglioti, 2005;Bucchioni et al 2016;De Coster, Andres, & Brass, 2014).…”

Section: Electronic Supplementary Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing self-other bodily overlap increases sensorimotor resonance to others’ pain

Riečanský

Lengersdorff

Pfabigan

et al. 2019

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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Empathy for another person's pain and feeling pain oneself seem to be accompanied by similar or shared neural responses. Such shared responses could be achieved by mapping the bodily states of others onto our own bodily representations. We investigated whether sensorimotor neural responses to the pain of others are increased when experimentally reducing perceived bodily distinction between the self and the other. Healthy adult participants watched video clips of the hands of ethnic ingroup or outgroup members being painfully penetrated by a needle syringe or touched by a cotton swab. Manipulating the video presentation to create a visuospatial overlap between the observer's and the target's hand increased the perceived bodily self-attribution of the target's hand. For both ingroup and outgroup targets, this resulted in increased neural responses to the painful injections (compared with nonpainful contacts), as indexed by desynchronizations of central mu and beta scalp rhythms recorded using electroencephalography. Furthermore, these empathy-related neural activations were stronger in participants who reported stronger bodily self-attribution of the other person's hand. Our findings provide further evidence that empathy for pain engages sensorimotor resonance mechanisms. They also indicate that reducing bodily self-other distinction may increase such resonance for ingroup as well as outgroup targets.

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Effects of Being Imitated on Motor Responses Evoked by Pain Observation: Exerting Control Determines Action Tendencies When Perceiving Pain in Others

Cited by 17 publications

References 28 publications

Self–other control processes in social cognition: from imitation to empathy

Self–other control processes in social cognition: from imitation to empathy

Observing back pain provoking lifting actions modulates corticomotor excitability of the observer's primary motor cortex

Increasing self-other bodily overlap increases sensorimotor resonance to others’ pain

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