Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on January 6, 2007
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl161
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Empathy for Pain and Touch in the Human Somatosensory Cortex
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
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  M. H. Immordino-Yang, A. McColl, H. Damasio, and A. Damasio From the Cover: Neural correlates of admiration and compassion PNAS, May 12, 2009; 106(19): 8021 - 8026. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 A. Brancucci, G. Lucci, A. Mazzatenta, and L. Tommasi Asymmetries of the human social brain in the visual, auditory and chemical modalities Phil Trans R Soc B, April 12, 2009; 364(1519): 895 - 914. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 R. Hari and M. V. Kujala Brain Basis of Human Social Interaction: From Concepts to Brain Imaging Physiol Rev, April 1, 2009; 89(2): 453 - 479. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 C. I. Hooker, S. C. Verosky, L. T. Germine, R. T. Knight, and M. D'Esposito Mentalizing about emotion and its relationship to empathy Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci, September 1, 2008; 3(3): 204 - 217. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 F. Benuzzi, F. Lui, D. Duzzi, P. F. Nichelli, and C. A. Porro Does It Look Painful or Disgusting? Ask Your Parietal and Cingulate Cortex J. Neurosci., January 23, 2008; 28(4): 923 - 931. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|