Feature article

The ability to identify with the emotional and physical states of others is routed in one’s capacity to produce internal equivalent mental empathetic sensations. In fact, our ability to sense empathy is so strong, that scientists have found that the mere observation of another person’s emotional state can lead to an involuntary brain activation linked with one’s own representation of the very same sensation. For instance, intriguing fMRI studies, an imaging technique which allows scientists and therapists to image changes in brain activity during a certain task, showed increased activity in brain areas called the insula the and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in both when participants were presented with a painful stimulus themselves, and when they perceived someone else experiences the same stimuli. The growing body of evidences reporting a similar pattern in other types of sensations (e.g. disgust, touch) suggests that empathy is manifested by the activation of the same neural system in response to one's own emotional and physical experiences, and to those of others.

Following this line of thought, a 2006 experiment by members of Chris Frith’s lab attempted to understand how empathetic brain activity will be influenced by prior complex social interactions. Specifically, they wanted to know – could it be that positive or negative social interactions with other people alters the inoluntary empathetic neural response to their pain? The authors proposed, sensibly, that manipulating participants’ perception of others as being unfair in an economic game model would lead to a decreased brain activity in the insula and ACC when the unfair confederate experienced a painful stimulus. Based on behavioural findings showing that people tend to reward cooperative behaviour and punish unfair individuals, an additional hypothesis predicted that the observation of the unfair player in pain would result in an increased activity in areas associated with reward processing– the ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens and the orbito-frontal cortex.

Participants were invited for a three-part experiment. To induce a perception of fairness/unfairness, participants were initially asked to play a Sequential Prisoners Dilemma game against two confederates who were instructed to hold different strategies. The participant always played first; they could either demonstrate trust in the other player by sending him or her 0-10 coins which could be tripled, or show mistrust by keeping a larger share of the money in their own possession. The other player could then be either fair or not, returning a large or small share. One confederate always played fair, and the other – unfair. In the second part, participants were invited to the fMRI scanner. During the scan, they either watched the hands of the other players stimulated by electrical shock, or experienced the painful stimulus themselves. At the end, they were invited to complete an intense set of questionnaires, in which they had to (a) indicate their perception of the other players (whether they were reasonable, agreeable, likable, and attractive), (b) rate their urge to revenge the unfair player, and (c) complete a standardised empathy scaling questionnaire.

In support of the main hypothesis, an analysis brain activity in pain related brain areas revealed a significantly greater activation in the insula and ACC following a painful trial to oneself or the fair player, compared to a decreased activity following the painful trials experienced by the unfair player. Interestingly, a follow up investigation revealed that while female participants showed a non-significant decrease activity in those areas, male participants did not elicit any activation in empathy related brain areas when observing the unfair player at pain. The result imply that brain mechanisms underpin empathy for pain are modulated by perceived fairness in male, but less so in females!

Going one step further, when the researchers analysed brain activity in areas associated with reward processing (e.g. ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens and the orbito-frontal cortex) they revealed a significant increased activation during painful trials for the unfair player in male, but not female participants. A correlation between the responses provided in questionnaire that tested the need for revenge and levels of activation of reward related brain areas revealed a positive trend, implying that activation of reward processing related areas are modulated by an individual desire to revenge the unfair player, and the pleasure associated with the painful punishment.

The study provided a fruitful result in support of various economic and behavioural models, and shrewdly addressed a certain aspect of the complex interaction between social factors and their implications upon the underlying neuro-biochemical modulation.

...Concluding opinion - girls, its time that we'll be more bitchy.