Cited by 903Action Observation and SynchronizationNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesEmpathy and Medical Education

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Is there a core neural network in empathy? An fMRI based quantitative meta-analysis

Fan, Yan, Duncan, Niall W., de Greck, Moritz, Northoff, Georg·2011·Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

DOI 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.10.009

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Abstract

Whilst recent neuroimaging studies have identified a series of different brain regions as being involved in empathy, it remains unclear concerning the activation consistence of these brain regions and their specific functional roles. Using MKDA, a whole-brain based quantitative meta-analysis of recent fMRI studies of empathy was performed. This analysis identified the dACC-aMCC-SMA and bilateral anterior insula as being consistently activated in empathy. Hypothesizing that what are here termed affective-perceptual and cognitive-evaluative forms of empathy might be characterized by different activity patterns, the neural activations in these forms of empathy were compared. The dorsal aMCC was demonstrated to be recruited more frequently in the cognitive-evaluative form of empathy, whilst the right anterior insula was found to be involved in the affective-perceptual form of empathy only. The left anterior insula was active in both forms of empathy. It was concluded that the dACC-aMCC-SMA and bilateral insula can be considered as forming a core network in empathy, and that cognitive-evaluative and affective-perceptual empathy can be distinguished at the level of regional activation.

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“Moreover, we found overlaps between social interactions and the affective/empathy cluster including areas considered central for empathy (Fan et al., 2011; Timmers et al., 2018), that is, the bilateral insulae, and a small cluster in the superior frontal gyrus (with the peak 3 mm dorsal to the…”
Prosocial decisions in naturalistic helping scenarios are predicted by cost-benefit tradeoffs and individual disposition
Wu, Q., Song, M., Ayoub, J., Dunning, D. A., Tian, D., & Moradi‐Pari, E. (2025) · Communications Psychology · doi:10.1038/s44271-025-00371-x · Cited by 4
“Second, emotional theories such as the ‘ negative-state relief model ’ emphasize internal affective bene ﬁ ts: helping alleviates personal distress caused by witnessing others suffer, mitigates guilt, and improves mood 22 – 24 .”
Social stress and affiliative touch: A tale of two affective states
Papantoniou, L. P., Vityk, O., & Tzanoulinou, S. (2026) · iScience · doi:10.1016/j.isci.2026.114833 · Cited by 4
“205,206 211 In mice, prosocial contact involving tactile cues seems to be a rewarding experience as they actively work to obtain access to interactions with an unfamiliar conspecific, with VTA DA neurons encoding social prediction error and driving social reinforcement learning.”
Loving‐Kindness Meditation: Systematic Review of Neuroimaging Correlates in Long‐Term Practitioners and Clinical Implications
Bashir, K., Edstrom, S. B., Barlow, S. J., Gainer, D. M., & Lewis, J. D. (2025) · Brain and Behavior · doi:10.1002/brb3.70372 · Cited by 5
“…of the insular cortex specifically is indicative of greater experiences of empathy across functional imaging studies, with the right insula primarily associated with affective-perceptual empathy and the left with both affective-perceptual and cognitive evaluative empathy (Fan et al. 2011).”
A Pilot Study of Perspective Taking and Emotional Contagion in Mental Health Professionals: Glass Brain View of Empathy
Reddy, R. P., Mathulla, A. R., & Rajeswaran, J. (2021) · Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine · doi:10.1177/0253717620973380 · Cited by 4
Psychopathy and Psychotic Disorders
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Social cognition and problematic alcohol use: An organizing theoretical framework and suggestions for future work
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The osteopath-parent-child triad in osteopathic care in the first 2 years of life: a qualitative study
Accardi, C., Cerritelli, F., Bovo, L., & Esteves, J. E. (2023) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1253355 · Cited by 5
“Empathy involves activating personal representations to understand others’ states and relies on interoceptive awareness, with empathy and self-awareness linked to the anterior insular cortex (Fan et al., 2011; De Waal and Preston, 2017; López-Solà et al., 2019; Schaefer et al., 2021).”
Background
Neural underpinnings of a two-phase memory suppression process in the neural response to self-related and observed perspective views
Song, X., Liu, Q., Zhang, X., Liu, C., Lan, C., Zhang, X., Xu, T., Zhang, R., Kendrick, K. M., Becker, B., et al. (2024) · International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.ijchp.2024.100509 · Cited by 3
Reducing racial ingroup biases in empathy and altruistic decision-making by shifting racial identification
Mei, S., Deng, Y., Zheng, G., & Han, S. (2025) · Science Advances · doi:10.1126/sciadv.adt6207 · Cited by 4
Acetaminophen study yields new insights into neurobiological underpinnings of empathy
Tully, J., & Petrinovic, M. M. (2016) · Journal of Neurophysiology · doi:10.1152/jn.00723.2016 · Cited by 5
“A recent meta-analysis by Fan et al. (2011) suggested that cognitive and affective empathy can also be distinguished at the level of regional activation patterns.”
BackgroundInfluential
The residential stability mindset increases racial in-group bias in empathy
Xu, Y., Chen, S., Kong, Q., & Luo, S. (2021) · Biological Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108194 · Cited by 5
Empathy, defending, and functional connectivity while witnessing social exclusion
McIver, T. A., Craig, W., Bosma, R. L., Chiarella, J., Klassen, J. A., Sandre, A., Goegan, S. A., & Booij, L. (2022) · Social Neuroscience · doi:10.1080/17470919.2022.2086618 · Cited by 4
“These same regions were later tied to empathy for social pain (Fan et al., 2011; Lamm et al., 2011).”
Background
Event-related correlates of compassion for social pain
Rodriguez, K., Ibarra, I. P., Musick, A., Hoerr, J. P., Napoli, D., & Berry, D. R. (2023) · Social Neuroscience · doi:10.1080/17470919.2023.2208878 · Cited by 4
“© 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group studies by increased BOLD responses in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and AI (Fan et al., 2011; Lamm et al., 2011; Singer et al., 2004).”
Background
Enriching Deep Learning with Frame Semantics for Empathy Classification in Medical Narrative Essays
Dey, P., & Gîrju, R. (2022) · International Workshop on Health Text Mining and Information Analysis (LOUHI) · doi:10.18653/v1/2022.louhi-1.23 · Cited by 6
“Moreover, our empathy instances are not always negative (Fan et al., 2011): a dataset reflecting empathetic language should ideally allow for expressions of empathy that encompass a variety of positive and negative emotions.”
Background
Structural connectivity of grandiose versus vulnerable narcissism as models of social dominance and subordination
Schmidt, L., Pfarr, J., Meller, T., Evermann, U., & Nenadić, I. (2023) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-023-41098-1 · Cited by 6
Understanding social attachment as a window into the neural basis of prosocial behavior
Berendzen, K. M. (2023) · Frontiers in Neurology · doi:10.3389/fneur.2023.1247480 · Cited by 4
Regulating Empathy: Exploring the Process through Agents and Strategies
Jia, K., & Liu, X. (2023) · International Journal of Mental Health Promotion · doi:10.32604/ijmhp.2023.043430 · Cited by 5
La adopción de perspectiva y la comunicación de la responsabilidad social corporativa: una revisión conceptual
Velasco, M. F. R., & Orejuela, A. R. (2018) · Revista Facultad de Ciencias Económicas · doi:10.18359/rfce.2888 · Cited by 4
Maternal Neurobiological Processing of Negative Adolescent Stimuli: Relations With Positive Parenting and Relationship Quality
Turpyn, C. C., Niehaus, C. E., Faundez, F., Thompson, J. C., & Chaplin, T. M. (2019) · Journal of Research on Adolescence · doi:10.1111/jora.12490 · Cited by 4
“These regions are implicated in affective processing, particularly aspects linked to emotional experience and monitoring (i.e., anterior insula, ACC), as well as emotional processes related to empathy (Fan et al, 2011).”
Background
The Effects of Brief Mindfulness Meditation on Empathy and Self-Regulation ability in the Perpetrators of School Violence
Kang, M., & 최윤정 (2017) · Korea Journal of Counseling · doi:10.15703/kjc.18.5.201710.191 · Cited by 4
Supremacy of Auditory Versus Visual Input in Somatic Empathy and Perceived Pain Level
Agahi, S., & Wanic, R. A. (2019) · Pain Management Nursing · doi:10.1016/j.pmn.2019.06.013 · Cited by 3
Understanding emotional empathy at postgraduate business programmes: what does the use of EEG reveal for future leaders?
Lambert, S., Dimitriadis, N., Taylor, M., & Venerucci, M. (2021) · Higher Education Skills and Work-based Learning · doi:10.1108/heswbl-09-2020-0218 · Cited by 4
Facial Expressions in Empathy Research
Regenbogen, C., & Habel, U. (2014) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-81-322-1934-7_6 · Cited by 5
A Prediction Method for Underwater Acoustic Chaotic Signal Based on RBF Neural Network
Li, G., & Yang, H. (2014) · Journal of Software · doi:10.4304/jsw.9.6.1581-1586 · Cited by 4
Neurobiological Underpinnings of Empathy
Pan, Y., Liu, Y., Ma, J., Ran, G., & Lei, H. C. (2013) · Advances in Psychological Science · doi:10.3724/sp.j.1042.2012.02011 · Cited by 4
Neural-level associations of non-verbal pragmatic comprehension in young Finnish autistic adults
Kotila, A., Tohka, J., Kauppi, J., Gabbatore, I., Mäkinen, L., Hurtig, T. M., Ebeling, H. E., Korhonen, V. O., Kiviniemi, V. J., & Loukusa, S. (2021) · International Journal of Circumpolar Health · doi:10.1080/22423982.2021.1909333 · Cited by 4
The Experience of Empathy in Everyday LifePreprint
Depow, G. J., Francis, Z. L., & Inzlicht, M. (2020) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/hjuab · Cited by 4
To feel and think what others feel and think: Functional network reorganization underlies context-changes in naturalistic social cognitionPreprint
Maliske, L., Lehmann, K., Schurz, M., Hildebrandt, M. K., Jauk, E., & Kanske, P. (2023) · PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/c6gsz · Cited by 4
Sleep and prosocial behaviors among young preschoolers: The mediating role of cognitive empathy.
Rong, T.-Y., Sun, X.-N., Deng, Y.-J., Liu, J.-Q., Lin, Q., Zhu, Q., Zhang, Y.-T., Zhang, Z.-C., Wang, Z.-J., Meng, M., et al. (2025) · Sleep Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.sleep.2025.106512 · Cited by 3
Love, laugh, life—the effect of empathy on the processing of emotion-label, emotion-laden and neutral abstract words
Espey, L., Bechtold, L., & Ghio, M. (2025) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-025-18415-x · Cited by 5
“This supports the idea that with higher empathy emotion-label words’ representations might be emotionally enriched compared to emotion-laden words, potentially due to stronger reliance on emotional dimensions during simulations in more versus less empathic participants 36,37 .”
The neurocognitive aspects of empathy and theory of mind in pragmatic language processing
Valles‐Capetillo, E., Bakul, F., Dominguez, J., Giòrdano, M., & Kana, R. K. (2026) · Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience · doi:10.3758/s13415-025-01389-8 · Cited by 4
“Affective empathy, by contrast, is primarily associated with the salience and emotional simulation networks, encompassing the anterior insula, amygdala, and other regions involved in processing emotionally salient stimuli and vicarious experiences (Fan et al., 2011).”
Empathy in human from a cognitive neuroscience perspective
Wei, G., Man, X., Ge, L., Ying, Y. A. O., ZhuoEr, H. U., Zhang, S., LiZhen, C. H. E. N., HaoRan, S. H. E. N., Gao, Y., & Zuo, X. (2021) · Scientia Sinica Vitae · doi:10.1360/ssv-2020-0258 · Cited by 3
Empathy incites a stable prosocial decision bias
Saulin, A., Ma, Y., & Hein, G. (2024) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhae272 · Cited by 4
The oxytocinergic system and racial ingroup bias in empathic neural activity
Duan, Q., Fan, L., Zhou, Y., Luo, S., & Han, S. (2024) · Neuropharmacology · doi:10.1016/j.neuropharm.2024.110151 · Cited by 3
Interpersonal neural synchronization in frontal-temporal regions as new neurophysiological index of interpretation quality: an fNIRS hyperscanning study
Zhang, Y., Duan, X., Feng, Y., Yuan, L., Huang, Y., & Yan, H. (2024) · Language Cognition and Neuroscience · doi:10.1080/23273798.2024.2423635 · Cited by 3
“The SMA is consistently activated during empathic behaviour (Fan et al., 2011).”

Authors: Fan, Y., Duncan, N. W., de Greck, M., & Northoff, G.
Affiliations: University of Ottawa (CA)
Corresponding author: Northoff, Georg
ORCID: Fan, Yan
Duncan, Niall W.
Northoff, Georg
Venue: Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Published: 2011-01
Volume: 35
Issue: 3
Pages: 903-911
ISSN: 0149-7634 (ISSN-L)
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.10.009
OpenAlex: W2088335634
Semantic Scholar: a0ef877b20f7510e11539ab069df023ea45c7501
Cited by: 902
References: 89
Citations by year: 2026: 41 · 2025: 44 · 2024: 49 · 2023: 56 · 2022: 82 · 2021: 90 · 2020: 77 · 2019: 65 · 2018: 55 · 2017: 67 · 2016: 57 · 2015: 75 · 2014: 58 · 2013: 47 · 2012: 28
FWCI: 3.45
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: closed
Licence: www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations: Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders: Salus Foundation
German Research Foundation
SFB/DFG
Hope of Depression Research Foundation (HDRF)
Topics: Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Empathy and Medical Education
Keywords: empathy, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, supplementary motor area, anterior insula
MeSH terms: Brain, Brain Mapping, Cognition, Empathy, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Neural Pathways, Neuropsychological Tests, Oxygen, Meta-Analysis as Topic

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Is there a core neural network in empathy? An fMRI based quantitative meta-analysis

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