Avenanti Alessio, Bueti Domenica, Galati Gaspare, Aglioti Salvatore M
Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università degli studi di Roma La Sapienza, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Nat Neurosci. 2005 Jul;8(7):955-60. doi: 10.1038/nn1481.
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.
疼痛与参与观察学习和模仿的动作系统密切相关。对自身疼痛的运动反应能引发冻结或逃避反应，最终关乎生存。在此我们表明，观察他人的痛苦事件也会引发类似的运动反应。我们使用经颅磁刺激来记录个体在观察针穿透人体模型或无实体物体的手或脚时手部肌肉的皮质脊髓运动表征变化。我们发现，运动诱发电位的幅度降低，且这种降低特定于被试观察到被针刺的肌肉。这种抑制与观察者对模型疼痛的感官特质的主观评分相关，也与感官共情测量相关，但与情感共情测量无关，与观察者的情感状态或特质无关。对他人疼痛的感官特质的共情推断及其在观察者运动系统中的自动体现，可能对疼痛反应的社会学习至关重要。
