Empathy and Brain

Emp thy X Br inChiaChia Lee

2016.12

What is empathy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

Preface

• Why this topic?

- empathy is important for helping professions

- wonder how does brain work when we empathize

• This presentation will follow research line of Singer, a neuroscience researcher in Germany

Definition1.Someone who is in an affective state.

• “cognitive perspective-taking” doesn’t meet this condition, e.g. based on my knowledge of you, I infer from your behaviour that you are anxious but I do not feel anxious.

2.This state is isomorphic to another person’s affective state. • “sympathy” doesn’t meet this condition, e.g. I feel sorry for you because you feel

jealous, depressed or angry but I am not jealous or depressed myself.

3.This state is elicited by the observation or imagination of another person’s affective.

4.One knows that the other person is the source of one’s own affective state. • “emotional contagion” involves affect sharing but doesn’t meet the condition of

self-other distinction, e.g. the baby starts crying because other babies cry but the baby is not necessarily aware that the other is the source of the affective state.

De Vignemont, F., & Singer, T. (2006). The empathic brain: how, when and why?. Trends in cognitive sciences, 10(10), 435-441.

How do we empathize?

Mirror Neuron• In the 1980s and 1990s, neurophysiologists Giacomo

Rizzolatti’s team in Italy observed monkeys’ brains. They noticed that certain cells activated both when a monkey performed an action and when that monkey watched another monkey performed the same action. “Mirror neurons” were discovered.

• A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron “mirror” the behaviors of the other as though the observer were itself acting.

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/do_mirror_neurons_give_empathyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/do_mirror_neurons_give_empathy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron

Mirror Neuron• However, some scientists suggest that the importance

of mirror neurons has been exaggerated • In a 2013 article for Wired, Christian Jarrett:

• In an 2012 interview, Neuroscientist Ramachandran;

“…when you see them mentioned in the media, remember that most of the research on these cells has been conducted in monkeys. Remember too that there are many different types of mirror neuron. And that we’re still trying to establish for sure whether they exist in humans, and how they compare with the monkey versions. As for understanding the functional significance of these cells … don’t be fooled: that journey has only just begun …”

“A lot of people, anything they can’t understand, they say it’s due to mirror neurons.”

Shared Network Hypothesis

• Many fMRI studies have shown that observing another person’s emotional state activates parts of the neuronal network involved in processing that same state in oneself, e.g. disgust, touch or pain. (Note: Many researches focus on empathy for pain.)


Shared Network Hypothesis• Some researchers: shared circuits such as these are formed by

associative learning or Hebbian learning mechanisms (a basic mechanism for synaptic plasticity, where an increase in synaptic efficacy arises from the presynaptic cell's repeated and persistent stimulation of the postsynaptic cell)

• In this view, shared networks might result from associations between simultaneously firing, coactivated neurons.

• Whenever a percept (e.g. the sight of an angry face) or symbolic cue (e.g. the word ‘pain’) is accompanied by a certain emotional, visceral or somatosensory activation, a connection between the cue and the neural representation of the internal sensation is formed.


Experiment• Using functional imaging,

researchers assessed brain activity while volunteers experienced a painful stimulus and compared it to that elicited when they observed a signal indicating that their loved one—present in the same room—was receiving a similar pain stimulus. - 1. my pain (green)- 2. watch other’s pain (red)

Singer, T., Seymour, B., O'doherty, J., Kaube, H., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2004). Empathy for pain involves the affective but not sensory components of pain. Science, 303(5661), 1157-1162.

green: selfred: other

Shared networks observed when pain was applied to self and other


• Overlapping: Bilateral anterior insula (AI), rostral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), brainstem, and cerebellum were activated when subjects received pain and also by a signal that a loved one experienced pain.

• AI and ACC activation correlated with individual empathy scores.

• AI plays an important role in social emotions; ACC lies in a position connecting to both the “emotional” limbic system and the “cognitive” prefrontal cortex


Brain activity specific to pain in oneself


• Activity in the posterior insula/secondary somatosensory cortex (SII), the sensorimotor cortex (SI/MI), and the caudal ACC was specific to receiving pain.

• These area are about sensory-discriminative information concerning pain stimuli

• The neural substrate for empathic experience does not involve the entire “pain matrix."


Empathy for pain involves the affective but not sensory components of pain


• Some neuroimaging studies on pain have demonstrated contralaterally(?) biased representations of painful stimulus in SI, distinct parts of SII, and posterior insula, as well as in lateral thalamus, which suggests that these structures provide sensory-discriminative information concerning nociceptive stimuli such as location, quality, and intensity.

• Using hypnosis(催眠) as a tool to disassociate sensory-discriminative from affective pain components, activation in ACC (posterior rostral zone) was shown to be modulated by perceived unpleasantness, whereas activation in SI and SII was unaffected.

meta-analysis: neural network underlying empathy for pain

Lamm, C., Decety, J., & Singer, T. (2011). Meta-analytic evidence for common and distinct neural networks associated with directly experienced pain and empathy for pain. Neuroimage, 54(3), 2492-2502.

When do we empathize: automatism and modulatory factors

• Automatism: it could be argued that we unconsciously share the affects of others even though we are not aware of doing so

• Modulatory factors: empathy is not merely the consequence of the passive observation of emotional cues but that it is subject to contextual appraisal and modulation.


• Intrinsic features of the shared emotion- the intensity, saliency and valence of the emotion displayed by the target

- empathize with primary emotions (fear) > secondary emotions (jealousy)

• Relationship between the empathizer and the target- Empathy were modulated by the affective link between the empathizer and

the person in pain. Other factors, such as similarity or familiarity, might also be crucial.

• Characteristics of the empathizer- gender, personality, age and past experiences of the empathizer

• Situative context- Could I share your joy if I knew that it was not justified? Could I empathize

with you if you suddenly started crying for no apparent reason or would I be more surprised?

Modulation of the empathic brain


Why Do We Empathize?• Epistemological role

- Empathy might enable us to make faster and more accurate predictions of other people’s needs and actions.

- Empathy provides knowledge about important environmental properties. For example, by seeing someone being burnt by a machine, we attach a negative “avoidance” value to the machine, without first having to experience the pain ourselves.

• Social role - Empathy might server as the origin of the motivation for altruistic

behavior and cooperation. And it might have a crucial role in human communication.


Transfer Empathy Into Compassion

Empathy v.s. Compassion

• In contrast to empathy, compassion does not mean sharing the suffering of the other: rather, it is conceived as a feeling of warmth, concern and care for another person’s suffering which is accompanied by motivation to help and improve the other’s well-being.

• Compassion is feeling for and not feeling with the other.

Singer, T., & Klimecki, O. M. (2014). Empathy and compassion. Current Biology, 24(18), R875-R878.

Experimental Design• This study consisted of two groups: the affect group, which first

received empathy training and subsequently compassion training, and the memory control group, which received two memory trainings.

• Participants were tested three times while watching videos depicting others suffering: before the first training (Pre) and after each training (Post1 and Post2).

Klimecki, O. M., Leiberg, S., Ricard, M., & Singer, T. (2013). Differential pattern of functional brain plasticity after compassion and empathy training. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, nst060.

Loving-kindness and compassion practice:“somone’s every action, every thought, every breath, everyday,

at every moment is because someone wants happiness and doesn’t want suffering.

I wish sb. to have happiness and cause of happiness. I wish sb

to be distance from suffering and cause of suffering.”

replace sb. by 1. you (self) 2. a person you love 3. a person you know 4. a person you hate 5. all human beings

Experimental Result (Psychological )

• Self-reported empathy and negative affect significantly increased after empathy training.

• Positive affect only increased after compassion training.

(HE: high emotion LE: low emotion)


Experimental Result (Neurological)

• Empathy (blue): - AI and aMCC have repeatedly been observed to covary with negative

affect ratings - the activation changes stemming from empathy training were not

limited to AI, but instead spanned the entire insular cortex. This accords with a key role of insular cortex in integrating interoceptive information

Fig. Functional neural changes related to empathy (blue) and compassion training (red) in comparison with the memory control group

Experimental Result (Neurological)• Compassion (red):

- brain changes in medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC) and striatum

- they have been shown to be centrally implicated in reward processing as well as in the experience of pleasure and positive affect.

- prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum have been related more specifically to maternal affiliation and romantic love


Empathy v.s. Compassion

Other Research Lines• Mirror-neuron system: V.S. Ramachandran,

Giacomo Rizzolatti and Marco Iacoboni

• Shamay-Tsoory Simone, University of Haifa: Two systems for empathy: Emotional empathy (Brodmann area 44) & cognitive empathy (areas 11 and 10)

• Stanford Medicine: The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education

http://ccare.stanford.edu/research/compassion-database/brain/

Conclusion• Empathy is the ability to share the feelings with others. • Ten years after the discovery of mirror neurons in monkeys, we now also

have evidence for shared affective neuronal networks underlying our ability to empathize.

• Anterior insult (AI) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) are activated both during the experience of pain and observing suffering of others.

• Empathy for pain involves the affective but not sensory components of pain.

• Empathic brain responses are modulated by appraisal processes • Compassion involves not only understanding of others’ emotion but also

motivation to help others. • Compassion activates neural network related to positive emotions while

empathy distress relates to negative affects.

References• Decety, J., & Jackson, P. L. (2006). A social-neuroscience perspective on empathy. Current directions

in psychological science, 15(2), 54-58.

• De Vignemont, F., & Singer, T. (2006). The empathic brain: how, when and why?. Trends in cognitive sciences, 10(10), 435-441.

• Engen, H. G., & Singer, T. (2013). Empathy circuits. Current opinion in neurobiology, 23(2), 275-282.

• Klimecki, O. M., Leiberg, S., Ricard, M., & Singer, T. (2013). Differential pattern of functional brain plasticity after compassion and empathy training. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, nst060.

• Lamm, C., Decety, J., & Singer, T. (2011). Meta-analytic evidence for common and distinct neural networks associated with directly experienced pain and empathy for pain. Neuroimage, 54(3), 2492-2502.

• Singer, T., & Klimecki, O. M. (2014). Empathy and compassion. Current Biology, 24(18), R875-R878.

• Singer, T., Seymour, B., O'doherty, J., Kaube, H., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2004). Empathy for pain involves the affective but not sensory components of pain. Science, 303(5661), 1157-1162.