Experimental Neuropsychology Research Unit, School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine, Monash University, Clayton, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia.
Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2010 Mar;34(4):500-12. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2009.10.007. Epub 2009 Oct 24.
This paper reviews the current literature on "empathy for pain", the ability to understand pain observed in another person, in the context of a newly documented form of pain empathy "synaesthesia for pain". In synaesthesia for pain a person not only empathises with another's pain but experiences the observed or imagined pain as if it was their own. Neural mechanisms potentially involved in synaesthesia for pain include "mirror systems": neural systems active both when observing an action, or experiencing an emotion or sensation and when executing the same action, or personally experiencing the same emotion or sensation. For example, we may know that someone is in pain in part because observation activates similar neural networks as if we were experiencing that pain ourselves. We propose that synaesthesia for pain may be the result of painful and/or traumatic experiences causing disinhibition in the mirror system underlying empathy for pain. We will discuss this theory in the context of a documented group of amputees who experience synaesthesia for pain in phantom limbs.
本文回顾了当前关于“疼痛共情”的文献，即理解他人观察到的疼痛的能力，并在新记录的一种疼痛共情形式“疼痛联觉”的背景下进行了讨论。在疼痛联觉中，一个人不仅对他人的疼痛感同身受，而且还会将观察到的或想象到的疼痛体验为自己的疼痛。可能涉及疼痛联觉的神经机制包括“镜像系统”：当观察到一个动作、体验一种情绪或感觉，或者执行相同的动作、或亲自体验相同的情绪或感觉时，这些系统都会活跃起来。例如，我们可能会知道某人正在疼痛中，部分原因是观察激活了与我们自己体验到相同疼痛相似的神经网络。我们提出，疼痛联觉可能是痛苦和/或创伤经历导致共情疼痛的镜像系统去抑制的结果。我们将在一组有记录的截肢者的背景下讨论这一理论，这些截肢者在幻肢中经历疼痛联觉。
