Almeida Rita, Prata Catarina, Pereira Mariana R, Barbosa Fernando, Ferreira-Santos Fernando
Laboratory of Neuropsychophysiology, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal.
GOS Institute of Child Health (UCL, UK), London WC1N 1EH, UK.
Brain Sci. 2024 May 16;14(5):504. doi: 10.3390/brainsci14050504.
Empathy is a crucial component to infer and understand others' emotions. However, a synthesis of studies regarding empathy and its neuronal correlates in perceptual tasks using event-related potentials (ERPs) has yet to occur. The current systematic review aimed to provide that overview. Upon bibliographic research, 30 studies featuring empathy assessments and at least one perceptual task measuring ERP components in healthy participants were included. Four main focus categories were identified, as follows: Affective Pictures, Facial Stimuli, Mental States, and Social Language. The Late Positive Potential was the most analyzed in Affective Pictures and was reported to be positively correlated with cognitive and affective empathy, along with other late components. In contrast, for Facial Stimuli, early components presented significant correlations with empathy scales. Particularly, the N170 presented negative correlations with cognitive and affective empathy. Finally, augmented N400 was suggested to be associated with higher empathy scores in the Mental States and Social Language categories. These findings highlight the relevance of early perceptual stages of empathic processing and how different EEG/ERP methodologies provide relevant information.
同理心是推断和理解他人情绪的关键要素。然而，尚未有关于同理心及其在使用事件相关电位（ERP）的感知任务中的神经关联的研究综述。当前的系统评价旨在提供这样的综述。通过文献研究，纳入了30项涉及同理心评估且至少有一项在健康参与者中测量ERP成分的感知任务的研究。确定了四个主要关注类别，如下：情感图片、面部刺激、心理状态和社会语言。晚期正电位在情感图片中分析最多，据报道与认知和情感同理心以及其他晚期成分呈正相关。相比之下，对于面部刺激，早期成分与同理心量表呈现出显著相关性。特别是，N170与认知和情感同理心呈负相关。最后，在心理状态和社会语言类别中，增强的N400被认为与更高的同理心得分相关。这些发现突出了同理心加工早期感知阶段的相关性以及不同的脑电图/ERP方法如何提供相关信息。
