The neural components of empathy: Predicting daily prosocial behavior

Abstract

Previous neuroimaging studies on empathy have not clearly identified neural systems that support the three components of empathy: affective congruence, perspective-taking, and prosocial motivation. These limitations stem from a focus on a single emotion per study, minimal variation in amount of social context provided, and lack of prosocial motivation assessment. In the current investigation, 32 participants completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging session assessing empathic responses to individuals experiencing painful, anxious, and happy events that varied in valence and amount of social context provided. They also completed a 14-day experience sampling survey that assessed real-world helping behaviors. The results demonstrate that empathy for positive and negative emotions selectively activates regions associated with positive and negative affect, respectively. In addition, the mirror system was more active during empathy for context-independent events (pain), whereas the mentalizing system was more active during empathy for context-dependent events (anxiety, happiness). Finally, the septal area, previously linked to prosocial motivation, was the only region that was commonly activated across empathy for pain, anxiety, and happiness. Septal activity during each of these empathic experiences was predictive of daily helping. These findings suggest that empathy has multiple input pathways, produces affect-congruent activations, and results in septally mediated prosocial motivation.

Behavior and Neural Correlates of Empathy in Adolescents

“…The time series are presented in TRs of 2.2. s, where 0 marks the onset of the stimulus presentation. Note that the activation pattern in IPL is showing deactivation at the onset of stimulus presentation, which is not uncommon for social mentalizing areas [16,27]. LSTS = Left superior temporal sulcus; RSTS = right superior temporal sulcus. …”

“…That is to say, it was previously found that observing pain was associated with increased activation in the IPS and STS, whereas observing happy scenarios was associated with increased activation in the mPFC and TPJ [16]. The mPFC is thought to code the emotional value of social display, as this region is more engaged when viewing social situations with more positive valence ratings [17].…”

Functional magnetic resonance imaging in dermatology: The skin, the brain and the invisible

“…[97][98][99][100] This system is believed to be implicated in other archaic social contagious "resonance reactions" such as yawning (linked to BA 6 activity [101] ), laughing and the development of empathy. [102,103] Patients with autism, schizophrenia and psychopathy seem to have a mirror neuron system deficiency as measurable by an impaired ability of contagious yawning. [104][105][106] Despite lacking clear evidence, [107] , it is speculated that in patients with delusional infestation, overactive contagious itch centres or an overactivity of the mirror neuron system may play a role.…”

A Less Attractive Feature of Empathy: Intergroup Empathy Bias

“…Doing this allows one to beter recognize and understand another person's afective experience. It therefore partly overlaps with theory of mind-like processing and relies on the mentalizing network [24,25]. Because perspective taking begins with the perception of afective signals from another individual, low-level processes involved in face perception and emotion recognition are integral to understanding another individual's internal state [26].…”

“…The experience of empathic concern may stimulate prosocial helping or caring behaviors in the observer [5,27]. Recent neuroimaging studies have highlighted the role of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) [13] and septal area [25] in empathy-driven prosocial motivation.…”