Yang Chia-Yen, Decety Jean, Lee Shinyi, Chen Chenyi, Cheng Yawei
Institute of Computer, Communication and System Engineering, Ching-Yun University, Chungli, Taiwan.
Brain Res. 2009 Jan 28;1251:176-84. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2008.11.062. Epub 2008 Dec 3.
Our recent magnetoencephalography study demonstrated that the mu rhythm can reliably indicate sensorimotor resonance during the perception of pain in others (Cheng, Y., Yang, C.Y., Lin, C.P., Lee, P.L., Decety, J., 2008b. The perception of pain in others suppresses somatosensory oscillations: a magnetoencephalography study. NeuroImage 40, 1833-1840). The current study further investigated the neurophysiological mechanism underpinning empathy for pain in relation with gender through the measurements of the electroencephalographic mu suppression in healthy female (N=16) and male (N=16) adults during the observation of body parts in painful or no-painful situations. The results demonstrate that both genders exhibited sensorimotor activation related to pain empathy. However, females showed stronger mu suppressions than males when watching the painful as well as the non-painful situations. Further, the mu suppression for pain empathy was positively correlated with the scoring on the personal distress subscale of the interpersonal reactivity index only in the female participants. The present findings suggest the existence of a gender difference in pain empathy in relation with the sensorimotor cortex resonance. The mu rhythm can be a potential biomarker of empathic mimicry.
我们最近的脑磁图研究表明，在感知他人疼痛的过程中，μ节律能够可靠地指示感觉运动共振（Cheng, Y., Yang, C.Y., Lin, C.P., Lee, P.L., Decety, J., 2008b. 他人疼痛的感知抑制体感振荡：一项脑磁图研究。《神经影像学》40, 1833 - 1840）。本研究通过测量16名健康成年女性和16名成年男性在观察处于疼痛或非疼痛情境下身体部位时的脑电图μ抑制情况，进一步探究了与性别相关的疼痛共情的神经生理机制。结果表明，两性均表现出与疼痛共情相关的感觉运动激活。然而，在观看疼痛和非疼痛情境时，女性的μ抑制比男性更强。此外，仅在女性参与者中，疼痛共情的μ抑制与人际反应指数中个人痛苦分量表的得分呈正相关。本研究结果表明，在与感觉运动皮层共振相关的疼痛共情方面存在性别差异。μ节律可能是共情模仿的潜在生物标志物。
