Stimulus-driven modulation of motor-evoked potentials during observation of others' pain

Avenanti, Alessio; Minio-Paluello, Ilaria; Bufalari, Ilaria; Aglioti, Salvatore Maria

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.03.010

Cited by 197 publications

(158 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…In contrast, other studies have found evidence for the important role of the sensory dimension of empathy for pain-in particular, when our attention is directed to the somatosensory aspects of the pain experience (Avenanti, Bueti, Galati, & Aglioti, 2005;Avenanti, Minio-Paluello, Bufalari, & Aglioti, 2006;Gu & Han, 2007;Lamm, Nusbaum, Meltzoff, & Decety, 2007b;Singer et al, 2006). In the study of Lamm, Nusbaum, et al, increased activation in the ACC, anterior insula, parietal cortex, and somatosensory cortex was elicited during watching of photographs displaying painful needle injections of unknown actors.…”

mentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Some studies showed that only the affective component of the pain matrix are involved in empathy for pain, and thus that only emotional, not sensory, representations of pain are shared between self and others (Saarela et al, 2007;Singer et al, 2004). On the other hand, previous transcranial magnetic stimulation studies (Avenanti et al, 2005;Avenanti et al, 2006) and somatosensory evoked potential studies (Bufalari, Aprile, Avenanti, Di Russo, & Aglioti, 2007) highlighted the possible sensorimotor aspect of empathy for pain. In recent years, subsequent fMRI studies supported these findings, demonstrating that both affective and somatosensory components of the pain matrix are activated during watching of complex visual scenes (Benuzzi et al, 2008;Costantini et al, 2008;Han et al, 2009;Lamm, Batson, & Decety, 2007a).…”

Section: Brain Responses To Sounds Of Pain and Sufferingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hearing others’ pain: neural activity related to empathy

Lang

Markl

et al. 2011

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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The human voice is one of the principal conveyers of social and affective communication. Recent neuroimaging studies have suggested that observing pain in others activates neural representations similar to those from the first-hand experience of pain; however, studies on pain expressions in the auditory channel are lacking. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to examine brain responses to emotional exclamations of others' pain. The control condition comprised positive (e.g., laughing) or negative (e.g., snoring) stimuli of the human voice that were not associated with pain and suffering. Compared to these control stimuli, pain-related exclamations elicited increased activation in the superior and middle temporal gyri, left insula, secondary somatosensory cortices, thalamus, and right cerebellum, as well as deactivation in the anterior cingulate cortex. The left anterior insular and thalamic activations correlated significantly with the Empathic Concern subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Thus, the brain regions involved in hearing others' pain are similar to those activated in the empathic processing of visual stimuli. Additionally, the findings emphasise the modulating role of interindividual differences in affective empathy.

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mentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Brain Responses To Sounds Of Pain and Sufferingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hearing others’ pain: neural activity related to empathy

Lang

Markl

et al. 2011

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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“…Subsequent neuroimaging techniques and designs, more focused on sensory-motor functions, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (Avenanti, Bueti, Galati, & Aglioti, 2005;Avenanti, Minio-Paluello, Bufalari, & Aglioti, 2006), magnetoencephalography (Cheng, Yang, Lin, Lee, & Decety, 2008), and electroencephalography (Bufalari, Aprile, Avenanti, Di Russo, & Aglioti, 2007;Jackson et al, 2007) demonstrated more consistently sensorymotor changes in relation with the mental representation of pain through pain observation.…”

Section: Decoding and Neurophysiological Reactions To Pain In Others mentioning

confidence: 99%

A biopsychosocial formulation of pain communication.

Hadjistavropoulos¹,

Craig²,

Duck³

et al. 2011

Psychological Bulletin

392

366

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We present a detailed framework for understanding the numerous and complicated interactions among psychological and social determinants of pain through examination of the process of pain communication. The focus is on an improved understanding of immediate dyadic transactions during painful events in the context of broader social phenomena. Fine-grain consideration of social transactions during pain leads to an appreciation of sociobehavioral events affecting both suffering persons as well as caregivers. Our examination considers knowledge from a variety of perspectives, including clinical health psychology, social and developmental processes, evolutionary psychology, communication studies, and behavioral neuroscience.

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“…Our finding that viewing images of wounds delivered to specific body parts yields to greater activation of parietal areas than viewing other emotional or neutral stimuli might be related to a difference in the degree of implicit "embodied simulation" (Damasio, 1994;Adolphs, 2002;Gallese et al, 2004) in the three conditions. This in turn might be attributable to the penetrating nature of the observed noxious stimuli (Avenanti et al, 2006).…”

Section: Brain Regions Involved In the Observation Of Unpleasant Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A second approach has been to study the fMRI activity engaged by observing pain-related behavior of unknown subjects [facial expressions of pain (Botvinick et al, 2005;Simon et al, 2006;Lamm et al, 2007;Saarela et al, 2007)]. In a third approach, viewing pictures of body parts of unknown actors in painful situations was compared with viewing nonpainful stimuli, using fMRI (Morrison et al, 2004;Jackson et al, 2005Jackson et al, , 2006bGu and Han, 2007;, transcranial magnetic stimulation (Avenanti et al, 2005(Avenanti et al, , 2006, or electroencephalography (Bufalari et al, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does It Look Painful or Disgusting? Ask Your Parietal and Cingulate Cortex

Benuzzi¹,

Lui²,

Duzzi³

et al. 2008

J. Neurosci.

139

109

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Looking at still images of body parts in situations that are likely to cause pain has been shown to be associated with activation in some brain areas involved in pain processing. Because pain involves both sensory components and negative affect, it is of interest to explore whether the visually evoked representations of pain and of other negative emotions overlap. By means of event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, here we compare the brain areas recruited, in female volunteers, by the observation of painful, disgusting, or neutral stimuli delivered to one hand or foot. Several cortical foci were activated by the observation of both painful and disgusting video clips, including portions of the medial prefrontal cortex, anterior, mid-, and posterior cingulate cortex, left posterior insula, and right parietal operculum. Signal changes in perigenual cingulate and left anterior insula were linearly related to the perceived unpleasantness, when the individual differences in susceptibility to aversive stimuli were taken into account. Painful scenes selectively induced activation of left parietal foci, including the parietal operculum, the postcentral gyrus, and adjacent portions of the posterior parietal cortex. In contrast, brain foci specific for disgusting scenes were found in the posterior cingulate cortex. These data show both similarities and differences between the brain patterns of activity related to the observation of noxious or disgusting stimuli. Namely, the parietal cortex appears to be particularly involved in the recognition of noxious environmental stimuli, suggesting that areas involved in sensory aspects of pain are specifically triggered by observing noxious events.

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Stimulus-driven modulation of motor-evoked potentials during observation of others' pain

Cited by 197 publications

References 46 publications

Hearing others’ pain: neural activity related to empathy

Hearing others’ pain: neural activity related to empathy

A biopsychosocial formulation of pain communication.

Does It Look Painful or Disgusting? Ask Your Parietal and Cingulate Cortex

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