Ionta Silvio, Costantini Marcello, Ferretti Antonio, Galati Gaspare, Romani Gian Luca, Aglioti Salvatore M
Sensory-Motor Lab (SeMoLa), Department of Ophthalmology-University of Lausanne, Jules Gonin Eye Hospital-Fondation Asile des Aveugles, Lausanne, Switzerland; Department of Neuroscience, Imaging and Clinical Science, University G. D'Annunzio, Chieti, Italy; Institute of Advanced Biomedical Technologies, University G. D'Annunzio, Chieti, Italy; CNLS@Sapienza, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.
Department of Psychological, Health and Territorial Sciences, University G. D'Annunzio, Chieti-Pescara, Italy.
Cortex. 2020 Dec;133:295-308. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.09.028. Epub 2020 Oct 15.
Personal and vicarious experience of pain activate partially overlapping brain networks. This brain activity is further modulated by low- and high-order factors, e.g., the perceived intensity of the model's pain and the model's similarity with the onlooker, respectively. We investigated which specific aspect of similarity modulates such empathic reactivity, focusing on the potential differentiation between visual similarity and psychological closeness between the onlooker and different types of models. To this aim, we recorded fMRI data in neurotypical participants who observed painful and tactile stimuli delivered to an adult human hand, a baby human hand, a puppy dog paw, and an anthropomorphic robotic hand. The interaction between type of vicarious experience (pain, touch) and nature of model (adult, baby, dog, robot) showed that the right supramarginal gyrus (rSMG) was selectively active for visual similarity (more active during vicarious pain for the adult and baby models), while the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was more sensitive to psychological closeness (specifically linked to vicarious pain for the baby model). These findings indicate that visual similarity and psychological closeness between onlooker and model differentially affect the activity of brain regions specifically implied in encoding interindividual sharing of sensorimotor and affective aspects of vicarious pain, respectively.
个人的疼痛经历和替代性疼痛经历会激活部分重叠的脑网络。这种脑活动会进一步受到低阶和高阶因素的调节，例如分别是对模型疼痛的感知强度以及模型与旁观者的相似性。我们研究了相似性的哪个具体方面会调节这种共情反应，重点关注旁观者与不同类型模型之间视觉相似性和心理亲近感的潜在差异。为此，我们记录了典型神经参与者的功能磁共振成像数据，这些参与者观察了施加在成人手、婴儿手、小狗爪子和拟人化机器人手上的疼痛和触觉刺激。替代性体验类型（疼痛、触摸）与模型性质（成人、婴儿、狗、机器人）之间的相互作用表明，右侧缘上回（rSMG）对视觉相似性有选择性激活（在对成人和婴儿模型的替代性疼痛期间更活跃），而前扣带回皮质（ACC）对心理亲近感更敏感（特别与对婴儿模型的替代性疼痛相关）。这些发现表明，旁观者与模型之间的视觉相似性和心理亲近感分别对在编码替代性疼痛的感觉运动和情感方面的个体间共享中特别涉及的脑区活动有不同影响。
