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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on January 6, 2007
Cerebral Cortex 2007 17(11):2553-2561; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl161
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Empathy for Pain and Touch in the Human Somatosensory Cortex

Ilaria Bufalari1,2, Taryn Aprile1,2, Alessio Avenanti1,2, Francesco Di Russo2,3 and Salvatore Maria Aglioti1,2

1 Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza", I-00185 Rome, Italy, 2 Centro Ricerche Neuropsicologia, Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Fondazione Santa Lucia, I-00179 Rome, Italy, 3 Dipartimento di Scienze della Formazione per le Attività Motorie e dello Sport, Istituto Universitario di Scienze Motorie, I-00194 Rome, Italy

Address correspondence to Salvatore Maria Aglioti, Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185 Rome, Italy. Email: salvatoremaria.aglioti{at}uniroma1.it.

Although feeling pain and touch has long been considered inherently private, recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies hint at the social implications of this experience. Here we used somatosensory-evoked potentials (SEPs) to investigate whether mere observation of painful and tactile stimuli delivered to a model would modulate neural activity in the somatic system of an onlooker. Viewing video clips showing pain and tactile stimuli delivered to others, respectively, increased and decreased the amplitude of the P45 SEP component that reflects the activity of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1). These modulations correlated with the intensity but not with the unpleasantness of the pain and touch ascribed to the model or the aversion induced in the onlooker by the video clips. Thus, modulation of S1 activity contingent upon observation of others' pain and touch may reflect the mapping of sensory qualities of observed painful and tactile stimuli. Results indicate that the S1 is not only involved in the actual perception of pain and touch but also plays an important role in extracting somatic features from social interactions.

Key Words: mirror systems • primary somatosensory cortex • simulation theory • social cognition • somatosensory-evoked potentials


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[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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