Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, 1010 Vienna, Austria.
Department of Behavioural Neuroscience, Institute of Normal and Pathological Physiology, Centre of Experimental Medicine, Slovak Academy of Sciences, 813 71 Bratislava, Slovakia.
Cereb Cortex. 2021 May 10;31(6):2773-2786. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa385.
It is not known how specific the neural mechanisms underpinning empathy for different domains are. In the present study, we set out to test whether shared neural representations between first-hand pain and empathy for pain are pain-specific or extend to empathy for unpleasant affective touch as well. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and psychopharmacological experiments, we investigated if placebo analgesia reduces first-hand and empathic experiences of affective touch, and compared them with the effects on pain. Placebo analgesia also affected the first-hand and empathic experience of unpleasant touch, implicating domain-general effects. However, and in contrast to pain and pain empathy, administering an opioid antagonist did not block these effects. Moreover, placebo analgesia reduced neural activity related to both modalities in the bilateral insular cortex, while it specifically modulated activity in the anterior midcingulate cortex for pain and pain empathy. These findings provide causal evidence that one of the major neurochemical systems for pain regulation is involved in pain empathy, and crucially substantiates the role of shared representations in empathy.
目前尚不清楚支持不同领域同理心的神经机制有多么具体。在本研究中，我们旨在测试第一手疼痛和对疼痛的同理心之间是否存在共享的神经表示，这些表示是否仅限于疼痛，还是也扩展到对不愉快的情感触觉的同理心。我们使用功能磁共振成像和精神药理学实验，研究了安慰剂镇痛是否会降低第一手和同理心的情感触觉体验，并将其与对疼痛的影响进行了比较。安慰剂镇痛也会影响不愉快触觉的第一手和同理心体验，暗示了一般领域的影响。然而，与疼痛和疼痛同理心不同的是，给予阿片类拮抗剂并不能阻断这些影响。此外，安慰剂镇痛降低了双侧脑岛皮质中与两种模式相关的神经活动，而对疼痛和疼痛同理心，它特异性地调节了前扣带皮质的活动。这些发现提供了因果证据，表明疼痛调节的主要神经化学系统之一参与了疼痛同理心，并且至关重要地证实了共享表示在同理心中的作用。
