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Transcranial magnetic stimulation highlights the sensorimotor side of empathy for pain.
Abstract
Pain is intimately linked with action systems that are involved in observational learning and imitation. Motor responses to one's own pain allow freezing or escape reactions and ultimately survival. Here we show that similar motor responses occur as a result of observation of painful events in others. We used transcranial magnetic stimulation to record changes in corticospinal motor representations of hand muscles of individuals observing needles penetrating hands or feet of a human model or noncorporeal objects. We found a reduction in amplitude of motor-evoked potentials that was specific to the muscle that subjects observed being pricked. This inhibition correlated with the observer's subjective rating of the sensory qualities of the pain attributed to the model and with sensory, but not emotional, state or trait empathy measures. The empathic inference about the sensory qualities of others' pain and their automatic embodiment in the observer's motor system may be crucial for the social learning of reactions to pain.
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“While two TMS studies [15], [16] and a recent ERP study [17] suggested involvement of sensorimotor processing, most fMRI results support the idea that the empathizers' response relies upon representing the affective rather than the sensory consequences of the other's pain.”
From What are you feeling? Using functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess the modulation of sensory and affective responses during empathy for pain (2007) · cites this paper as [15]
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Research works printed but not linked: 1
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Metadata
- Authors
- Avenanti, A., Bueti, D., Galati, G., & Aglioti, S. M.
- Affiliations
- Sapienza University of Rome (IT)
- Fondazione Santa Lucia (IT)
- University of Chieti-Pescara (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Aglioti, Salvatore M
- Venue
- Nature Neuroscience
- Published
- 2005-06-05
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 955-960
- ISSN
- 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
- 1546-1726
- OpenAlex
- W2160683905
- Cited by
- 615
- References
- 51
- Citations by year
- 2026: 35 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 30 · 2016: 45 · 2015: 27 · 2014: 36 · 2013: 45 · 2012: 33
- FWCI
- 41.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Archivio istituzionale della ricerca (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna) (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- SDL (submittedVersion)
- IRIS Research product catalog (Sapienza University of Rome) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Ministero dell'Università e della Ricerca
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine › Pain Management and Treatment
- Keywords
- empathy for pain, mirror neuron system, motor evoked potentials, corticospinal excitability, embodiment, social learning, imitation, transcranial magnetic stimulation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Electric Stimulation, Empathy, Foot, Hand, Humans, Male, Motor Cortex, Pain, Pyramidal Tracts, Somatosensory Cortex, Muscle, Skeletal, Evoked Potentials, Motor, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
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