School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, 52 Haidian Road, Beijing 100080, China.
School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, 52 Haidian Road, Beijing 100080, China.
Neuroimage. 2021 Jan 1;224:117400. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117400. Epub 2020 Sep 24.
Both electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have revealed enhanced neural responses to perceived pain in same-race than other-race individuals. However, it remains unclear how neural responses in the sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective subsystems vary dynamically in the first few hundreds of milliseconds to generate racial ingroup favoritism in empathy for pain. We recorded magnetoencephalography signals to pain and neutral expressions of Asian and white faces from Chinese adults during judgments of racial identity of each face. We found that pain compared to neutral expressions of same-race faces induced early increased alpha oscillations in the precuneus/parietal cortices followed by increased alpha-band oscillations in the left anterior insula and temporoparietal junction. Pain compared to neutral expressions of other-race faces, however, induced early suppression of alpha-band oscillations in the bilateral sensorimotor cortices and left insular cortex. Moreover, decreased functional connectivity between the left sensorimotor cortex and left anterior insula predicted reduced subjective feelings of other-race suffering. Our results unraveled distinct patterns of modulations of neural dynamics of sensorimotor, affective, and cognitive components of empathy by interracial relationships between an observer and a target person, which provide possible brain mechanisms for understanding racial ingroup favoritism in social behavior.
脑电图和功能磁共振成像研究都表明，与其他种族的人相比，个体对同种族的感知疼痛会产生更强的神经反应。然而，目前尚不清楚在最初的几百毫秒内，感觉运动、认知和情感子系统的神经反应如何动态变化，从而在同理心对疼痛的种族内群体偏好中产生作用。我们记录了中国成年人对亚洲人和白人面孔的种族身份判断时，来自疼痛和中性表情的脑磁图信号。我们发现，与同种族面孔的中性表情相比，疼痛会引起顶叶/顶下小叶的早期 alpha 振荡增加，随后左前岛叶和颞顶联合区的 alpha 波段振荡增加。然而，与其他种族面孔的中性表情相比，疼痛会引起双侧感觉运动皮层和左侧岛叶的早期 alpha 波段振荡抑制。此外，左感觉运动皮层与左前岛叶之间功能连接的降低预测了对他人痛苦的主观感受的降低。我们的研究结果揭示了观察者和目标人物之间的种族关系对同理心的感觉运动、情感和认知成分的神经动力学的调节模式，为理解社会行为中的种族内群体偏好提供了可能的大脑机制。
