Imaging empathy and prosocial emotions

Lamm, Claus; Rütgen, Markus; Wagner, Isabella C.

doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2017.06.054

Cited by 179 publications

(154 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Previous studies have consistently associated task‐dependent TPJ activation with aspects of social cognition, such as perspective‐taking, cognitive empathy, and self‐other distinction (Decety & Lamm, ; Frith & Frith, ; Jackson, Brunet, Meltzoff, & Decety, ; Lamm, Rütgen, & Wagner, ; Steinbeis, ; Tusche et al, ). Furthermore, task‐dependent activation of the TPJ has been associated with altruistic and generous choices (Hare et al, ; Hutcherson et al, ; Park et al, ; Strombach et al, ; Zanon, Novembre, Zangrando, Chittaro, & Silani, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Neural traits characterize unconditional cooperators, conditional cooperators, and noncooperators in group‐based cooperation

Baumgärtner

Dahinden

Gianotti

et al. 2019

Human Brain Mapping

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Contributing to and maintaining public goods are important for a functioning society. In reality, however, we see large variations in contribution behavior. While some individuals are not cooperative, others are highly so. Still others cooperate only to the extent they believe others will. Although these distinct behavioral types clearly have a divergent social impact, the sources of heterogeneity are poorly understood. We used source‐localized resting electroencephalography in combination with a model‐free clustering approach to participants' behavior in the Public Goods Game to explain heterogeneity. Findings revealed that compared to noncooperators, both conditional cooperators and unconditional cooperators are characterized by higher baseline activation in the right temporo‐parietal junction, an area involved in social cognition. Interestingly, conditional cooperators were further characterized by higher baseline activation in the left lateral prefrontal cortex, an area involved in behavioral control. Our findings suggest that conditional cooperators' better capacities for behavioral control enable them to control their propensity to cooperate and thus to minimize the risk of exploitation by noncooperators.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Neural traits characterize unconditional cooperators, conditional cooperators, and noncooperators in group‐based cooperation

Baumgärtner

Dahinden

Gianotti

et al. 2019

Human Brain Mapping

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“…Empathy, however, goes beyond mere mental simulation as it also incorporates affect sharing and selfother distinction (Lamm et al, 2019). While the latter might be achieved by neural processing within the TPJ (Saxe and Kanwisher, 2003), affect sharing may depend on shared representations during the firsthand (pain) experience and empathy for it (Bastiaansen et al, 2009;Singer and Lamm, 2009;Decety, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Empathy describes the ability to share the emotional state of another person and is crucial for successful social interactions. The so-called "shared representations account" suggests that empathy for an affective state engages similar neuronal processes as experiencing the affective state directly (Zaki et al, 2016;Lamm et al, 2019). In line with this assumption, previous studies implicated the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (also termed anterior mid-cingulate cortex; dACC/aMCC) and the anterior insula in the first-hand experience of pain and in pain empathy (Fan et al, 2011;Lamm et al, 2011;Rütgen et al, 2015bRütgen et al, , 2015aRütgen et al, , 2018Marsh, 2018).…”

mentioning

confidence: 81%

“…Furthermore, a recent animal study revealed neurons within the rat ACC that coded not only for first-hand pain but also fired when rats witnessed a conspecific receiving footshocks (Carrillo et al, 2019). This data, however, stands in contrast to divergent results from multivariate analyses that reported both shared and distinct representations during experienced emotions and empathy (Corradi-Dell'Acqua et al, 2011, 2016Krishnan et al, 2016), altogether fueling a long-standing debate on the neural underpinnings of empathy (Zaki et al, 2016;Lamm et al, 2019).…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Besides affect sharing, empathy is thought to depend on multiple processes, including self-other distinction and mentalizing, i.e., mentally simulating the stance of another person (see Lamm et al, 2019 for a review). Social cognition theories of mental simulation posit that individuals use their own mental states as models to understand the mental states and actions of others (Gallese and Goldman, 1998).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Pattern similarity and connectivity of hippocampal-neocortical regions support empathy for pain

Wagner

Ruetgen

2019

Preprint

Self Cite

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AbstractEmpathy is thought to engage mental simulation, which in turn is known to rely on hippocampal-neocortical processing. Here, we tested how hippocampal-neocortical pattern similarity and connectivity contributed to pain empathy. Using this approach, we analyzed a data set of 102 human participants who underwent functional MRI while painful and non-painful electrical stimulation was delivered to themselves or to a confederate. As hypothesized, results revealed increased pattern similarity between fist-hand pain and pain empathy (compared to non-painful control conditions) within the hippocampus, retrosplenial cortex, the temporo-parietal junction and anterior insula. While representations in these regions were unaffected by confederate similarity, pattern similarity in the dorsal MPFC was increased the more dissimilar the other individual was perceived. Moreover, hippocampal connectivity with regions engaged in first-hand pain was also increased during pain empathy, during which hippocampal coupling with the fusiform gyrus positively scaled with self-report measures of individual perspective taking skills. These findings highlight that shared representations and interactions within a hippocampal-neocortical network support pain empathy. This potentially reflects memory-based mental simulation processes, which seem partially modulated by personality traits and the perceived similarity of the other individual in pain.

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Probing the role of the right inferior frontal gyrus during Pain‐Related empathy processing: Evidence from fMRI and TMS

Zhang

et al. 2020

Human Brain Mapping

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Recent studies have suggested that the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) may be involved in pain‐related empathy. To verify the role of the rIFG, we performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to replicate previous research and further designed a noninvasive repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) experiment to probe the causal role of the rIFG in pain‐related empathy processing. We assigned 74 volunteers (37 females) to three groups. Group 1 (n = 26) performed a task in which participants were required to perceive pain in others (task of pain: TP) and we used fMRI to observe the activity of the rIFG during pain‐related empathy processing. Then, we applied online rTMS to the rIFG and the vertex site (as reference site) to observe the performance of Group 2 (n = 24; performing TP) and Group 3 (n = 24; performing a control task of identifying body parts; task of body: TB). fMRI experiment demonstrated stronger activation in the rIFG than in the vertex during the perception of pain in others (p < .0001, Bonferroni‐corrected). rTMS experiment indicated that when the rIFG was temporarily disrupted, participants perceived pain in others significantly more slowly (p < .0001, Bonferroni‐corrected) than when the vertex was disrupted. Our results provide evidence that the rIFG is involved in pain‐related empathy processing, which yields insights into how the brain perceives pain in others.

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Imaging empathy and prosocial emotions

Cited by 179 publications

References 55 publications

Neural traits characterize unconditional cooperators, conditional cooperators, and noncooperators in group‐based cooperation

Neural traits characterize unconditional cooperators, conditional cooperators, and noncooperators in group‐based cooperation

Pattern similarity and connectivity of hippocampal-neocortical regions support empathy for pain

Probing the role of the right inferior frontal gyrus during Pain‐Related empathy processing: Evidence from fMRI and TMS

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