The rational aspect of empathy

July 18, 2011

According to a new study from the University of Southern California, even failing to possess a full complement of limbs will not stop your brain from understanding what it is like for someone else to experience pain in one of them. It may, however, change the way your brain does so, the researchers have found.

They showed videos of tasks being performed by hands, feet, and a mouth to a woman who had been born without arms or legs and also to a group of 13 typically developed women. Videos showed activities such as a mouth eating and a hand grasping an object. The researchers also showed videos of pain, in the form of an injection.

While the participants watched the videos, their brains were scanned using functional magnetic imaging (fMRI). The researchers found that both sensory-motor parts of the brain (used, for example, when empathizing with a fellow amputee), and the rationalizing parts work in together to create a sensation of empathy.

Ref.: Lisa Aziz-Zadeh, et al., Understanding Otherness: The Neural Bases of Action Comprehension and Pain Empathy in a Congenital Amputee, Cerebral Cortex, 2011; [DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhr139]