Hein Grit, Singer Tania
University of Zurich, Center for the Study of Social and Neural Systems, Blümlisalpstrasse 10, CH-8006 Zurich, Switzerland.
Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2008 Apr;18(2):153-8. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2008.07.012. Epub 2008 Aug 15.
The ability to share the other's feelings, known as empathy, has recently become the focus of social neuroscience studies. We review converging evidence that empathy with, for example, the pain of another person, activates part of the neural pain network of the empathizer, without first hand pain stimulation to the empathizer's body. The amplitude of empathic brain responses is modulated by the intensity of the displayed emotion, the appraisal of the situation, characteristics of the suffering person such as perceived fairness, and features of the empathizer such as gender or previous experience with pain-inflicting situations. Future studies in the field should address inter-individual differences in empathy, development and plasticity of the empathic brain over the life span, and the link between empathy, compassionate motivation, and prosocial behavior.
能够分享他人的感受，即所谓的同理心，最近已成为社会神经科学研究的焦点。我们综述了越来越多的证据，表明例如对他人疼痛的同理心会激活同理心者的部分神经疼痛网络，而无需对同理心者的身体进行直接疼痛刺激。同理心大脑反应的幅度会受到所展示情绪的强度、对情境的评估、受苦者的特征（如感知到的公平性）以及同理心者的特征（如性别或之前在造成疼痛情境中的经历）的调节。该领域未来的研究应关注同理心的个体差异、同理心大脑在整个生命周期中的发育和可塑性，以及同理心、同情动机和亲社会行为之间的联系。
