Human empathy through the lens of social neuroscience.

“In a number of studies (see [69], for review), it has been demonstrated that the right TPJ is specifically activated when subjects focusing their attention on a certain screen location are presented with a stimulus at a nonattended location, representing a violation of their expectancy and requiring them to redirect t…”

“Various strategies have been identified to regulate emotions by means of top-down cognitive control[75].”

“Electrophysiological recordings in monkeys as well as neuroimaging experiments in humans have shown that the observation of actions performed by others activates cortical motor representations in the self (see [17] for review).”

“This system includes the insula and medial cingulate cortices[81] and codes the affective and motivational dimensions of pain.”

“Heuristically, these processes have been arranged on a continuum from attentional control to cognitive change[76].”

“Besides, empathy has evolved as an in-group phenomena[9].”

“Such a proposal is consistent with social psychology experiments showing that humans tend to nonconsciously mimic the behaviors of others[15], leading to more smooth interactions and increased liking.”

“Furthermore, recent data suggest that this region is also involved in empathy[36] and in theory of mind, i.”

“Such a simulation might both lead to the mobilization of motor areas (including the SMA) in order to prepare defensive or withdrawal behaviors, and to interoceptive monitoring associated with autonomic changes evoked by this simulation process[44].”

“• An affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition, and which is similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel in the given situation[8]”

“Carlson and Moses[34] have convincingly documented the contribution of executive functions, especially inhibitory control, in both the emergence and expression of mental state attribution in children.”

“One fMRI experiment demonstrates that when participants are required to observe or to imitate facial expressions of various emotions, increased neurodynamic activity is detected in the superior temporal sulcus, the anterior insula, and the amygdala, as well as in areas of the premotor cortex corresponding to the repre…”

“The OFC plays an important role in the evaluation of positive and negative reinforcements[83], and is also involved in emotion reappraisal.”

“, [14]).”

“Singer and colleagues[91] engaged participants in a sequential Prisoner’s dilemma game with confederate targets, who would either play the game in a fair or unfair way.”

“For instance, one critical question debated among social psychologists is whether perspective-taking instructions induce empathic concern and/or personal distress, and to what extent prosocial motivation springs from self-other overlap (see [7,96]).”

“However, these findings are at odds with fMRI studies of empathy for pain, which did not detect any changes in the somatosensory cortex during the perception of pain in others[22,23,24].”

“Specific activation in the right inferior parietal cortex/TPJ was detected when participants mentally simulated actions from someone else’s perspective[64].”

“Interestingly, the amygdala receives nociceptive information from the spino-parabrachial pain system and the insula, and its activity appears closely tied to the context and level of aversiveness of the perceived stimuli[42].”

“It has also been demonstrated that nonconscious behavioral mimicry increases affiliation, which serves to foster relationships with others[16].”

“In another study[59], a joystick was used to drive a circle along a T-shaped path.”

“Also, the work of Downar et al.[70] suggests that the right (and left) TPJs are crucial aspects of a multimodal cortical network for the detection of changes in the sensory environment.”

“the awareness that others like the self possess mental states that can be similar or different from oneself[66,67].”

“1152 individual experiencing these situations[27].”

“Batson and colleagues[3] offered an empathy-altruism hypothesis, which claims that purely altruistic action can reliably occur provided that it is preceded by empathic concern for another.”

“Self-awareness is a necessary condition for making inference about the mental states in others[47].”

“These results reveal the similarities in neural networks representing first- and third-person information, which is consistent with the shared representations account of social interaction[38].”

“Results demonstrated a graded hemodynamic activity of the right inferior parietal lobule that parallels the degree of mismatch between the executed movements and the visual reafference[58].”

“• An affective response more appropriate to someone else’s situation than to one’s own[6]”

“• An other-oriented emotional response congruent with the other's perceived welfare[7]”

“Previous research has shown that emotion regulation positively relates to feelings of concern for the other person[73].”

“For instance, the right TPJ is specifically involved when participants imagine how another person would feel in everyday-life situations that elicit social emotions[37] or in painful experiences, but not when they imagine these situations for themselves[27,39].”

“There is increasingly clear evidence of a specific developmental link between theory-of-mind development and improved self-control at around the age of 4[33].”

“Recently, a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) study reported changes in corticospinal motor representations of hand muscles in individuals observing needles penetrating hands or feet of a human model[25], indicating that the observation of pain can involve sensorimotor representations.”

“Similarly, patients with generalized social phobia, which are characterized by fear of social interactions and sensitivity to disapproval by others, show increased amygdala activation when exposed to angry or contemptuous faces[87].”

“It has been demonstrated that individuals who can regulate their emotions are more likely to experience empathy, and also to act in morally desirable ways with others[71].”

“This pattern of activation is also consistent with data collected using direct nonpainful and painful electrical stimulation of the insular cortex in neurological patients[29].”

“, delusional beliefs about the body[56]).”

“Interestingly, the development of self and other mental state understanding is functionally linked to that of executive functions[31,32].”

“Indeed, the ability to recognize oneself as the agent of a behavior is the way one builds as an entity independent from the external world[52].”

“For instance, one fMRI study showed that observing fearful body expressions not only produces increased activity in brain areas associated with emotional processes, but also in areas linked with representation of action and movement[18].”

“Similar results were also reported by Morrison and colleagues[23] who scanned participants during a condition of feeling a moderately painful pinprick stimulus to the fingertips and in another condition in which they witnessed another person’s hand undergo similar stimulation.”

“Accumulating evidence from neuroimaging studies, as well as lesion studies in neurological patients, indicates that the right inferior parietal cortex, at the junction with the posterior temporal cortex (temporoparietal junction, TPJ), plays a critical role in comparing signals arising from self-produced actions with…”

“Because of these anatomical characteristics, this region is a pivotal neural locus for self-processing that is involved in multisensory body-related information processing, as well as in the processing of phenomenological and cognitive aspects of the self[55].”

“In addition, studies on imitation have documented the involvement of right inferior parietal cortex/TPJ during reciprocal imitation in which it may be difficult to keep track of agency[62,63].”

“These results indicate that the emotion-sharing component may be subject to personal experience, and/or that emotion regulation and associated caring is prepared differently in men and women (but see also [93]).”

“These results indicate that this area is not simply involved in associating actions and their sensory consequences, but, in general, contributes to distinguishing the self from others[38,65].”

“Lanzetta and coworkers[94,95] investigated the psychophysiological, behavioral, and psychological effects of attitudes on interpersonal interaction.”

“This is demonstrated by an fMRI study showing significant interactions between gender and parental status in the neural response to infant crying and laughing[92].”

“This has been demonstrated in a positron emission tomography study in which participants were instructed to focus their attention either on the unpleasantness or the location of the noxious stimuli delivered on the participants’ hands[26], with the latter condition resulting in increased regional cerebral blood flow i…”

“A similar rostrocaudal organization is observed in the insula, in which pain-specific responses are observed in more medial-posterior parts, while observation of pain leads to increases in anterior insula[28].”

“the awareness that others like the self possess mental states that can be similar or different from oneself[66,67].”

“For instance, participants instructed to imagine being in a safe, comfortable place showed reduced behavioral and physiological markers of anxiety related to the anticipation of painful stimulation[82].”

“Another study showed that the observation of everyday hand and face actions performed with an emotion recruits regions involved in the perception and the experience of emotion and/or in communication[21].”

“Accumulating evidence from neuroimaging studies, as well as lesion studies in neurological patients, indicates that the right inferior parietal cortex, at the junction with the posterior temporal cortex (temporoparietal junction, TPJ), plays a critical role in comparing signals arising from self-produced actions with…”

“In addition, studies on imitation have documented the involvement of right inferior parietal cortex/TPJ during reciprocal imitation in which it may be difficult to keep track of agency[62,63].”

“• The ability to put oneself into the mental shoes of another person to understand his or her emotions and feelings[a form of simulation, or inner imitation][4]”

“For example, promoting knowledge about the specific needs and problems of elderly people in a game situation resulted in significant increases in empathy and caring for elderly patients[89].”

“However, despite the obvious advantages of understanding another person’s thoughts and feelings, empathy does not come without costs[85].”

“Lanzetta and coworkers[94,95] investigated the psychophysiological, behavioral, and psychological effects of attitudes on interpersonal interaction.”

“However, many models of empathy assume an important role of mimicry and emotional contagion and regard these two phenomena as interacting (see Singer and Lamm, 2009, for clarification of terms, and Decety and Lamm, 2006; Preston and de Waal, 2002).”

“Decety and Lamm (2006), for example, proposed a model in which bottom-up (i.e., direct matching between perception and action) and top-down (i.e., regulation, contextual appraisal, and control) information processes are fundamentally intertwined in the generation and modulation of empathy.”

“In particular, this distinction is what separates empathy from emotional contagion (Decety & Lamm, 2006; de Vignemont & Singer, 2006; Gerdes et al., 2010; Scheler, cited in Ickes, 2003).”

“It was thus important to demonstrate both the similarities in the neural networks underlying the sharing of pain with others and the specific mechanisms that permit distinguishing the self from others, which is critical for the experience of empathy (Decety & Hodges, 2006; Decety & Lamm, 2006; Decety, 2005).”