Abstract
The perception and evaluation of other’s pain has been largely used in social neuroscience as a paradigm to study human empathy. Thanks to the growing attention given to this concept over the last 15 years, the cerebral bases of empathy in the context of physical pain are increasingly well documented. The aim of this chapter is to provide a critical overview of the most recent evidence while fostering discussion about the extent to which the cerebral changes associated with empathy can lead to a specific signature of this key process of social interactions. The authors firstly clarify the complex definition of empathy and its principal components, and make a clear distinction between pain perception in others, empathy and the behavioral outputs that can follow. Secondly, the cerebral networks underlying the distinct, yet interacting, components of empathy for physical pain are defined. Lastly, recent work on the factors that are likely to modulate empathy and these cerebral networks is discussed. The study of brain function has advanced our understanding of empathy in the context of physical pain considerably, but the complexity of this often fleeting process, especially in healthcare, is such that multiple levels of analysis will be needed to fully uncover its mysteries.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Abbreviations
- ACC:
-
Anterior cingulate cortex
- AI:
-
Anterior insula
- aMCC:
-
Anterior midcingulate cortex
- CIP:
-
Congenital insensitivity to pain
- dACC:
-
Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex
- DLPFC:
-
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
- EEG:
-
Electroencephalography
- fMRI:
-
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
- IFG:
-
Inferior frontal gyrus
- IPL:
-
Inferior parietal lobule
- LPP:
-
Late positive potential
- MEP:
-
Motor evoked potentials
- mPFC:
-
Medial prefrontal cortex
- OFC:
-
Orbitofrontal cortex
- PCC:
-
Posterior cingulate cortex
- preSMA:
-
Pre-supplementary motor area
- pSTS:
-
Posterior superior temporal sulcus
- S1:
-
Primary somatosensory cortex
- S2:
-
Secondary somatosensory cortex
- TMS:
-
Transcranial magnetic stimulation
- TPJ:
-
Temporoparietal junction
- vmPFC:
-
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex
References
Akitsuki, Y., & Decety, J. (2009). Social context and perceived agency affects empathy for pain: An event-related fMRI investigation. NeuroImage, 47(2), 722–734. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.04.091
Amodio, D. M., & Frith, C. D. (2006). Meeting of minds: The medial frontal cortex and social cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7(4), 268–277.
Apkarian, A. V., Hashmi, J. A., & Baliki, M. N. (2011). Pain and the brain: Specificity and plasticity of the brain in clinical chronic pain. Pain, 152(3 Suppl), S49.
Avenanti, A., Bueti, D., Galati, G., & Aglioti, S. M. (2005). Transcranial magnetic stimulation highlights the sensorimotor side of empathy for pain. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 955–960. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1481
Avenanti, A., Sirigu, A., & Aglioti, S. M. (2010). Racial bias reduces empathic sensorimotor resonance with other-race pain. Current Biology, 20(11), 1018–1022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2010.03.071
Aziz-Zadeh, L., Sheng, T., Liew, S. L., & Damasio, H. (2012). Understanding otherness: The neural bases of action comprehension and pain empathy in a congenital amputee. Cerebral Cortex, 22(4), 811–819. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhr139
Baliki, M. N., Chialvo, D. R., Geha, P. Y., Levy, R. M., Harden, R. N., Parrish, T. B., & Apkarian, A. V. (2006). Chronic pain and the emotional brain: Specific brain activity associated with spontaneous fluctuations of intensity of chronic back pain. The Journal of Neuroscience, 26(47), 12165–12173. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3576-06.2006
Batson, C. D. (2009). These things called empathy: Eight related but distinct phenomena. In J. Decety & W. Ickes (Eds.), Social neuroscience. The social neuroscience of empathy (pp. 3–15). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Baumgartner, T., Fischbacher, U., Feieraben, A., Lutz, K., & Fehr, E. (2009). The neural circuitry of a broken promise. Neuron, 64(5), 756–770.
Bonvicini, K. A., Perlin, M. J., Bylund, C. L., Carroll, G., Rouse, R. A., & Goldstein, M. G. (2009). Impact of communication training on physician expression of empathy in patient encounters. Patient Education and Counseling, 75, 3–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2008.09.007
Botvinick, M., Jha, A. P., Bylsma, L. M., Fabian, S. A., Solomon, P. E., & Prkachin, K. M. (2005). Viewing facial expressions of pain engages cortical areas involved in the direct experience of pain. NeuroImage, 25, 312–319.
Buckner, R. L., Andrews Hanna, J. R., & Schacter, D. L. (2008). The brain’s default network. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1124(1), 1–38.
Budell, L., Jackson, P. L., & Rainville, P. (2010). Brain responses to facial expressions of pain: Emotional or motor mirroring? NeuroImage, 53(1), 355–363. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.05.037
Cheng, Y., Lin, C. P., Liu, H. L., Hsu, Y. Y., Lim, K. E., Hung, D., & Decety, J. (2007). Expertise modulates the perception of pain in others. Current Biology, 17(19), 1708–1713. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2007.09.020
Cheon, B. K., Im, D. M., Harada, T., Kim, J. S., Mathur, V. A., Scimeca, J. M., … Chiao, J. Y. (2011). Cultural influences on neural basis of intergroup empathy. NeuroImage, 57(2), 642–650. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.04.031
Cheon, B. K., Im, D. M., Harada, T., Kim, J. S., Mathur, V. A., Scimeca, J. M., … Chiao, J. Y. (2013). Cultural modulation of the neural correlates of emotional pain perception: The role of other-focusedness. Neuropsychologia, 51(7), 1177–1186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.03.018
Coll, M. P., Grégoire, M., Latimer, M., Eugene, F., & Jackson, P. L. (2011). Perception of pain in others: Implication for caregivers. Pain Management, 1, 257–265. https://doi.org/10.2217/pmt.11.21
Coll, M. P., Grégoire, M., Prkachin, K., & Jackson, P. L. (2016). Repeated exposure to vicarious pain alters electrocortical processing of pain expressions. Experimental Brain Research, 234(9), 2677–2686. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-016-4671-z
Conson, M., Errico, D., Mazzarella, E., Giordano, M., Grossi, D., & Trojano, L. (2015). Transcranial electrical stimulation over dorsolateral prefrontal cortex modulates processing of social cognitive and affective information. PLoS One, 10(5), e0126448. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0126448
Contreras-Huerta, L. S., Baker, K. S., Reynolds, K. J., Batalha, L., & Cunnington, R. (2013). Racial bias in neural empathic responses to pain. PLoS One, 8(12). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0084001
Corradi-Dell’Acqua, C., Hofstetter, C., & Vuilleumier, P. (2011). Felt and seen pain evoke the same local patterns of cortical activity in insular and cingulate cortex. The Journal of Neuroscience, 31, 17996–18006. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2686-11.2011
Corradi-Dell’Acqua, C., Tusche, A., Vuilleumier, P., & Singer, T. (2016). Cross-modal representations of first-hand and vicarious pain, disgust and fairness in insular and cingulate cortex. Nature Communications, 7. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10904
Craig, K. D. (2009). The social communication model of pain. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 50(1), 22.
Cui, F., Abdelgabar, A. R., Keysers, C., & Gazzola, V. (2015). Responsibility modulates pain-matrix activation elicited by the expressions of others in pain. NeuroImage, 114, 371–378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.03.034
D’Argembeau, A., Ruby, P., Collette, F., Degueldre, C., Balteau, E., Luxen, A., … Salmon, E. (2007). Distinct regions of the medial prefrontal cortex are associated with self-referential processing and perspective taking. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(6), 935–944. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2007.19.6.935
Danziger, N., Faillenot, I., & Peyron, R. (2009). Can we share a pain we never felt ? Neural correlates of empathy in patients with congenital insensitivity to pain. Neuron, 29(2), 203–212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2008.11.023
Danziger, N., Prkachin, K. M., & Willer, J. C. (2006). Is pain the price of empathy? The perception of others’ pain in patients with congenital insensitivity to pain. Brain, 129(Pt 9), 2494–2507. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awl155
Davis, M. H. (1980). A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy. JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 10, 85.
De Coster, L., Andres, M., & Brass, M. (2014). Effects of being imitated on motor responses evoked by pain observation: Exerting control determines action tendencies when perceiving pain in others. The Journal of Neuroscience, 34(20), 6952–6957. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5044-13.2014
De Coster, L., Verschuere, B., Goubert, L., Tsakiris, M., & Brass, M. (2013). I suffer more from your pain when you act like me: Being imitated enhances affective responses to seeing someone else in pain. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioural Neuroscience, 13, 519–532. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-013-0168-4
De Waal, F. B. M., & Preston, S. D. (2017). Mammalian empathy: Behavioural manifestations and neural basis. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2017.72
Decety, J., Chen, C., Harenski, C., & Kiehl, K. A. (2013). An fMRI study of affective perspective taking in individuals with psychopathy: Imagining another in pain does not evoke empathy. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 489. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00489
Decety, J., & Jackson, P. L. (2004). The functional architecture of human empathy. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 3, 71–100.
Decety, J., Jackson, P. L., & Brunet, E. (2007). The cognitive neuropsychology of empathy. In Dans Farrow, T. & Woodruff, P. (Dir.), Empathy in mental illness (pp. 239–260). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Decety, J., & Lamm, C. (2007). The role of the right temporoparietal junction in social interaction: How low-level computational processes contribute to meta-cognition. The Neuroscientist, 13(6), 580–593. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073858407304654
Decety, J., Skelly, L. R., & Kiehl, K. A. (2013). Brain response to empathy-eliciting scenarios involving pain in incarcerated individuals with psychopathy. JAMA Psychiatry, 70(6), 638–645. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.27
Decety, J., & Sommerville, J. A. (2003). Shared representations between self and other: A social cognitive neuroscience view. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(12), 527–533. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2003.10.004
Del Canale, S., Louis, D. Z., Maio, V., Wang, X., Rossi, G., Hojat, M., & Gonnella, J. S. (2012). The relationship between physician empathy and disease complications: An empirical study of primary care physicians and their diabetic patients in Parma, Italy. Academic Medicine, 87, 1243–1249. https://doi.org/10.1097/acm.0b013e3182628fbf
Donaldson, P. H., Rinehart, N. J., & Enticott, P. G. (2015). Noninvasive stimulation of the temporoparietal junction: A systematic review. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 55, 547–572. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.05.017
Fan, Y., Duncan, N. W., de Greck, M., & Northoff, G. (2011). Is there a core neural network in empathy? An fMRI based quantitative meta-analysis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 35(3), 903–911. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.10.009
Fan, Y. T., Chen, C., Chen, S. C., Decety, J., & Cheng, Y. (2014). Empathic arousal and social understanding in individuals with autism: Evidence from fMRI and ERP measurements. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(8), 1203–1213. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nst101
Feighny, K. M., Monaco, M., & Arnold, L. (1995). Empathy training to improve physician-patient communication skills. Academic Medicine, 70, 435–436. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001888-199505000-00031
Frith, C. D. (2007). Making up the mind; how the brain creates our mental world. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Frith, C. D., & Frith, U. (2006). How we predict what other people are going to do. Brain Research, 1079(1), 36–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2005.12.126
Garcia-Larrea, L., & Peyron, R. (2013). Pain matrices and neuropathic pain matrices: A review. Pain, 154, S29–S43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2013.09.001
Geng, J. J., & Mangun, G. R. (2011). Right temporoparietal junction activation by a salient contextual cue facilitates target discrimination. NeuroImage, 54(1), 594–601. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.08.025
Geng, J. J., & Vossel, S. (2013). Re-evaluating the role of TPJ in attentional control: Contextual updating? Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 37(10), 2608–2620. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2013.08.010
Gerdes, K. E., Segal, E. A., & Lietz, C. A. (2010). Conceptualising and measuring empathy. British Journal of Social Work, 40(7), 2326–2343. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcq048
Gleichgerrcht, E., & Decety, J. (2013). Empathy in clinical practice: How individual dispositions, gender, and experience moderate empathic concern, burnout, and emotional distress in physicians. PLoS One, 8(4), e61526. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061526
Gonzalez-Liencres, C., Brown, E. C., Tas, C., Breidenstein, A., & Brüne, M. (2016). Alterations in event-related potential responses to empathy for pain in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Research, 241, 14–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2016.04.091
Goubert, L., Craig, K. D., Vervoort, T., Morley, S., Sullivan, M. J. L., Williams, A. C., … Crombez, G. (2005). Facing others in pain: The effects of empathy. Pain, 118(3), 285–288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2005.10.025
Gross, J. J., & Thompson, R. A. (2007). Emotion regulation: Conceptual foundations. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (pp. 3–24). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Gu, X., Eilam-Stock, T., Zhou, T., Anagnostou, E., Kolevzon, A., Soorya, L., … Fan, J. (2015). Autonomic and brain responses associated with empathy deficits in autism spectrum disorder. Human Brain Mapping, 36, 3323–3338. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.22840
Hadjikhani, N., Zürcher, N. R., Rogier, O., Hippolyte, L., Lemonnier, E., Ruest, T., … Helles, A. (2014). Emotional contagion for pain is intact in autism spectrum disorders. Translational Psychiatry, 4(1), e343. https://doi.org/10.1038/tp.2013.113
Halpern, J. (2012). Clinical empathy in medical care. In J. Decety (Ed.), Empathy: From bench to bedside (pp. 229–244). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Heberlein, A. S., Padon, A. A., Gillihan, S. J., Farah, M. J., & Fellows, L. K. (2008). Ventromedial frontal lobe plays a critical role in facial emotion recognition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 721–733.
Hoffman, H. G., Patterson, D. R., Seibel, E., Soltani, M., Jewett-Leahy, L., & Sharar, S. R. (2008). Virtual reality pain control during burn wound debridement in the hydrotank. The Clinical Journal of Pain, 24(4), 299–304.
Hynes, C. A., Baird, A. A., & Grafton, S. T. (2006). Differential role of the orbitofrontal lobe in emotional versus cognitive perspective-taking. Neuropsychologia, 44, 374–383. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2005.06.011
Issner, J. B., Cano, A., Leonard, M. T., & Williams, A. M. (2012). How do I empathize with you? Let me count the ways: Relations between facets of pain-related empathy. The Journal of Pain, 13(2), 167–175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2011.10.009
Jackson, P. L., Brunet, E., Meltzoff, A. N., & Decety, J. (2006). Empathy examined through the neural mechanisms involved in imagining how I feel versus how you feel pain. Neuropsychologia, 44, 752–761.
Jackson, P. L., Eugène, F., & Tremblay, M.-P. B. (2015). Improving empathy in the care of pain patients. American Journal of Bioethics – Neuroscience, 6(3), 25–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2015.1047053
Jackson, P. L., Latimer, M., Eugène, F., Macloead, E., Hatfield, T., Vachon-Presseau, E., … Prkachin, K. M. (2017). Empathy in paediatric intensive care nurses part 2: Neural correlates. Journal of Advanced Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13334
Jackson, P. L., Rainville, P., & Decety, J. (2006). To what extent do we share the pain of others? Insight from the neural bases of pain empathy. Pain, 125(1–2), 5–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2006.09.013
Jeannerod, M. (2001). Neural simulation of action: A unifying mechanism for motor cognition. NeuroImage, 14, S103–S109.
Jensen, K. B., Petrovic, P., Kerr, C. E., Kirsch, I., Raicek, J., Cheetham, A., … Kaptchuk, T. J. (2014). Sharing pain and relief: Neural correlates of physicians during treatment of patients. Molecular Psychiatry, 19(3), 392–398. https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2012.195
Keysers, C., & Gazzola, V. (2010). Social neuroscience: Mirror neurons recorded in humans. Current Biology, 20(8), R353–R354.
Koole, S. L. (2009). The psychology of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Cognition and Emotion, 23(1), 4–41.
Krishnan, A., Woo, C. W., Chang, L. J., Ruzic, L., Gu, X., López-Solà, M., … Wager, T. D. (2016). Somatic and vicarious pain are represented by dissociable multivariate brain patterns. eLife, 5, e15166.
Kucyi, A., & Davis, K. D. (2016). The neural code for pain: From single-cell electrophysiology to the dynamic pain connectome. The Neuroscientist, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073858416667716
Kurth, F., Zilles, K., Fox, P. T., Laird, A. R., & Eickhoff, S. B. (2010). A link between the systems: Functional differentiation and integration within the human insula revealed by meta-analysis. Brain Structure and Function, 214, 519–534. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-010-0255-z
Lamm, C., Batson, C. D., & Decety, J. (2007). The neural substrate of human empathy: Effects of perspective-taking and cognitive appraisal. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 42–58.
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. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.10.014
Latimer, M., Jackson, P., Johnston, C., & Vine, J. (2011). Examining nurse empathy for infant procedural pain: Testing a new video measure. Pain Research and Management, 16(4), 228–233.
Latimer, M., Jackson, P. L., Eugène, F., Macloead, E., Hatfield, T., Vachon-Presseau, E., … Prkachin, K. M. (2017). Empathy in pediatric nurses part 1: Behavioral and psychological correlates. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 00, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13333
Li, W., Mai, X., & Liu, C. (2014). The default mode network and social understanding of others: What do brain connectivity studies tell us. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 74.
Liu, X., Powell, D. K., Wang, H., Gold, B. T., Corbly, C. R., & Joseph, J. E. (2007). Functional dissociation in frontal and striatal areas for processing of positive and negative reward information. The Journal of Neuroscience, 27, 4587–4597.
Lockwood, P. L. (2016). The anatomy of empathy: Vicarious experience and disorders of social cognition. Behavioural Brain Research, 311, 255–266. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2016.05.048
Loeser, J. D., & Treede, R. D. (2008). The Kyoto protocol of IASP basic pain terminology. Pain, 137(3), 473–477.
Lucy, P., Cohn, J. F., Prkachin, K. M., Solomon, P., & Matthrews, I. (2011). Painful data: The UNBC-McMaster shoulder pain expression archive database. In IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG2011).
Marcoux, L. A., & Jackson, P. L. (2012). Perspective des neurosciences sociales sur l’influence des différences individuelles et de la psychopathologie sur l’empathie pour la douleur. Médecin Sciences Amérique, 2(1), 51–67.
Mars, R. B., Neubert, F. X., Noonan, M. P., Sallet, J., Toni, I., & Rushworth, M. F. (2012). On the relationship between the “default mode network” and the “social brain”. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 189.
Marsh, A. A., Finger, E. C., Fowler, K. A., Adalio, C. J., Jurkowitz, I. T., Schechter, J. C., … Blair, R. J. R. (2013). Empathic responsiveness in amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex in youths with psychopathic traits. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 54(8), 900–910. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12063.Empathic
Mathur, V. A., Harada, T., Lipke, T., & Chiao, J. Y. (2010). Neural basis of extraordinary empathy and altruistic motivation. NeuroImage, 51(4), 1468–1475.
Meffert, H., Gazzola, V., den Boer, J. A., Bartels, A. A., & Keysers, C. (2013). Reduced spontaneous but relatively normal deliberate vicarious representations in psychopathy. Brain, 136(8), 2550–2562. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awt190
Melloni, M., Lopez, V., & Ibanez, A. (2014). Empathy and contextual social cognition. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 14(1), 407–425. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-013-0205-3
Meng, J., Jackson, T., Chen, H., Hu, L., Yang, Z., Su, Y., & Huang, X. (2013). Pain perception in the self and observation of others: An ERP investigation. NeuroImage. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.01.024
Morawetz, C., Bode, S., Derntl, B., & Heekeren, H. R. (2017). The effect of strategies, goals and stimulus material on the neural mechanisms of emotion regulation: A meta-analysis of fMRI studies. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 72, 111–128.
Morelli, S. A., & Lieberman, M. D. (2013). The role of automaticity and attention in neural processes underlying empathy for happiness, sadness, and anxiety. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 160. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00160
Neumann, M., Edelhäuser, F., Tauschel, D., Fischer, M. R., Wirtz, M., Woopen, C., … Scheffer, C. (2011). Empathy decline and its reasons: A systematic review of studies with medical students and residents. Academic Medicine, 86(8), 996–1009.
Nummenmaa, L., Hirvonen, J., Parkkola, R., & Hietanen, J. K. (2008). Is emotional contagion special? An fMRI study on neural systems for affective and cognitive empathy. NeuroImage, 43, 571–580.
Ochsner, K. N., & Gross, J. J. (2005). The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(5), 242–249.
Perry, S., Heidrich, G., & Ramos, E. (1981). Assessment of pain by burn patients. Journal of Burn Care & Research, 2(6), 322–326.
Poldrack, R. A. (2006). Can cognitive processes be inferred from neuroimaging data? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(2), 59–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2005.12.004
Preis, M. A., Kröner-Herwig, B., Schmidt-Samoa, C., Dechent, P., & Barke, A. (2015). Neural correlates of empathy with pain show habituation effects. An fMRI study. PLoS One, 10(8), e0137056. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137056
Preis, M. A., Schmidt-Samoa, C., Dechent, P., & Kroener-Herwig, B. (2013). The effects of prior pain experience on neural correlates of empathy for pain: An fMRI study. Pain. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2012.11.014
Preston, S. D., & de Waal, F. B. M. (2002). Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25(1), 1–72.
Preusche, I., & Lamm, C. (2016). Reflections on empathy in medical education: What can we learn from social neurosciences? Advances in Health Sciences Education, 21(1), 235–249. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-015–9581-5
Price D. D. (2010). Psychological and neural mechanisms of the affective dimension of pain. Science, 288(5472), 1769–1772. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.288.5472.1769
Prinz, W. (1997). Perception and action planning. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 9(2), 129–154. https://doi.org/10.1080/713752551
Prkachin, K. M., Mass, H., & Mercer, S. R. (2004). Effects of exposure on perception of pain expression. Pain, 111(1), 8–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2004.03.027
Prkachin, K. M., & Rocha, E. M. (2010). High levels of vicarious exposure bias pain judgments. The Journal of Pain, 11(9), 904–909. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2009.12.015
Prkachin, K. M., Solomon, P. E., & Ross, J. (2007). La sous-estimation de la douleur par les prestateurs de soins : vers la conception d’un modèle d’inférence pour évaluer la douleur chez autrui. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, 39, 88–106.
Rakel, D. P., Hoeft, T. J., Barrett, B. P., Chewning, B. A., Craig, B. M., & Niu, M. (2009). Practitioner empathy and the duration of the common cold. Family Medicine, 41(7), 494. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2008.04.014
Riečanský, I., Paul, N., Kölble, S., Stieger, S., & Lamm, C. (2015). Beta oscillations reveal ethnicity ingroup bias in sensorimotor resonance to pain of others. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsu139
Rogachov, A., Cheng, J. C., Erpelding, N., Hemington, K. S., & Crawley, A. P. (2016). Regional brain signal variability: A novel indicator of pain sensitivity and coping. Pain, 157(11), 2483–2492.
Rütgen, M., Seidel, E. M., Silani, G., Riečanský, I., Hummer, A., Windischberger, C., … Lamm, C. (2015). Placebo analgesia and its opioidergic regulation suggest that empathy for pain is grounded in self pain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(41), E5638–E5646. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1511269112
Samson, D., Apperley, I. A., Chiavarino, C., & Humphreys, G. W. (2004). Left temporoparietal junction is necessary for representing someone else’s beliefs. Nature Neuroscience, 7, 499–500.
Saxe, R. (2006). Uniquely human social cognition. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 16, 235–239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2006.03.001
Saxe, R., & Kanwisher, N. (2003). People thinking about people: The role of the temporoparietal junction in theory of mind. NeuroImage, 19, 1835–1842. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1053-8119(03)00230-1
Schilbach, L., Eickhoff, S. B., Rotarska-Jagiela, A., Fink, G. R., & Vogeley, K. (2008). Minds at rest? Social cognition as the default mode of cognizing and its putative relationship to the “default system” of the brain. Consciousness and Cognition, 17(2), 457–467.
Shamay-Tsoory, S. G. (2009). Empathic processing. In J. Dans Decety & W. Ickes (Eds.), The social neuroscience of empathy (pp. 215–232). London, England: MIT Press.
Simon, D., Craig, K. D., Miltner, W. H. R., & Rainville, P. (2006). Brain responses to dynamic facial expressions of pain. Pain, 126(1), 309–318.
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 component of pain. Science, 303(5661), 1157–1162. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1093535
Singer, T., Seymour, B., O’Doherty, J. P., Stephan, K. E., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2006). Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others. Nature, 439(7075), 466–469. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04271
Tomova, L., Majdandžić, J., Hummer, A., Windischberger, C., Heinrichs, M., & Lamm, C. (2016). Increased neural responses to empathy for pain might explain how acute stress increases prosociality. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, nsw146. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsw146
Treede, R. D., Kenshalo, D. R., Gracely, R. H., & Jones, A. K. (1999). The cortical representation of pain. Pain, 79(2), 105–111.
Van Overwalle, F., & Baetens, K. (2009). Understanding others’ actions and goals by mirror and mentalizing systems: A meta-analysis. NeuroImage, 48(3), 564–584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.06.009
Vistolli, D., Lavoie, M. A., Sutliff, S., Jackson, P. L., & Achim, A. (2017). fMRI examination of empathy for pain in people with schizophrenia reveals abnormal activation related to cognitive perspective-taking but typical activation linked to affective-sharing. Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, 42, 262–272.
Völlm, B. A., Taylor, A. N., Richardson, P., Corcoran, R., Stirling, J., McKie, S., … Elliott, R. (2006). Neuronal correlates of theory of mind and empathy: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study in a nonverbal task. NeuroImage, 29(1), 90–98.
Wager, T. D., Atlas, L. Y., Lindquist, M. A., Roy, M., Woo, C.-W., & Kross, E. (2013). An fMRI-based neurologic signature of physical pain. The New England Journal of Medicine, 368(15), 1388–1397. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1204471
Wang, J., Wang, Y., Hu, Z., & Li, X. (2014). Transcranial direct current stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex increased pain empathy. Neuroscience, 281C, 202–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2014.09.044
Willis, M. L., Palermo, R., McGrillen, K., & Miller, L. (2014). The nature of facial expression recognition deficits following orbitofrontal cortex damage. Neuropsychology, 28(4), 613–623.
Xu, X., Zuo, X., Wang, X., & Han, S. (2009). Do you feel my pain? Racial group membership modulates empathic neural responses. The Journal of Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2418-09.2009
Yamada, M., & Decety, J. (2009). Unconscious affective processing and empathy: An investigation of subliminal priming on the detection of painful facial expressions. Pain, 143(1), 71–75.
Yang, C. Y., Decety, J., Lee, S., Chen, C., & Cheng, Y. (2009). Gender differences in the mu rhythm during empathy for pain: An electroencephalographic study. Brain Research, 1251, 176–184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2008.11.062
Zaki, J., & Oschner, K. N. (2012). The neuroscience of empathy: Progress, pitfalls and promise. Nature Neuroscience, 15(5), 675–680.
Zaki, J., Wager, T. D., Singer, T., Keysers, C., & Gazzola, V. (2016). The anatomy of suffering: Understanding the relationship between nociceptive and empathic pain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(4), 249–259.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tremblay, MP.B., Meugnot, A., Jackson, P.L. (2018). The Neural Signature of Empathy for Physical Pain … Not Quite There Yet!. In: Vervoort, T., Karos, K., Trost, Z., Prkachin, K. (eds) Social and Interpersonal Dynamics in Pain. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78340-6_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78340-6_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78339-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78340-6
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)