I feel your pain
Laura Nelson ,
Empathy lights up the same parts of the brain as personal injury.
The more they care, the more he'll feel what she feels.
The ability to appreciate other people's agony is achieved by the same parts of the brain that we use to experience pain for ourselves.
When we encounter a painful stimulus, such as an electric shock, signals travel from the site of the stimulus up to the brain. This is then translated into both a physical and an emotional response.
Tania Singer, an imaging neuroscientist at University College London, and her colleagues performed an experiment to see whether any parts of this process happens in the brains of people who aren't experiencing the pain themselves, but are simply empathizing with someone who is.
The team first delivered an electric shock to the hands of 16 women, and observed their brain activity using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. The team found that their brains were activated in several areas, including both sensory and emotional regions.
They then delivered an electric shock to the hand of each woman's partner instead. The women were allowed to see the shock being administered, but were prevented from watching their partner's face during the treatment. This eliminated a large part of the emotional response one might expect from watching a friend in pain.
Even so, the researchers found that the womens' brains still lit up in the same emotional areas as when their own hand was being shocked1.
The study shows that empathy works by tapping into a brain mechanism that already exists for our own pain, says Singer. This makes us believe we are feeling pain emotionally even when we are not feeling it physically.
Strong bonds
The emotional activity was stronger in some people than in others. The response seemed to be greater in those with a stronger emotional bond, says Singer. "It is very heavy for people who care," says Singer.
The researchers have yet to try the experiment on men, or on people who are not couples. But Uta Frith, a cognitive biologist also at University College London, thinks the experiment would show the same result with any two normal people.
But psychopaths would probably show no emotional response at all, she adds. Psychopaths don't experience empathy, she says, so they have no understanding of how much pain they are inflicting on other people.
Singer thinks the empathic response probably enables us to forge loving bonds, such as between a mother and child. "It has an evolutionary function," she says. In a broader sense, empathy can help us understand what someone else is feeling , be it pain, joy or anger. Such an ability may serve to help ward off danger. "We can ask questions such as: 'Will this person kill me?'," says Singer.
Researchers think it may be possible to suppress the same part of the brain through hypnosis. When hypnotised, people can be made apparently insensitive to pain, stopping them from being conscious of or reacting to painful stimuli, although no one knows exactly how this works. "Pain is subjective perception," says Singer.
Empathy lights up the same parts of the brain as personal injury.
The more they care, the more he'll feel what she feels.
The ability to appreciate other people's agony is achieved by the same parts of the brain that we use to experience pain for ourselves.
When we encounter a painful stimulus, such as an electric shock, signals travel from the site of the stimulus up to the brain. This is then translated into both a physical and an emotional response.
Tania Singer, an imaging neuroscientist at University College London, and her colleagues performed an experiment to see whether any parts of this process happens in the brains of people who aren't experiencing the pain themselves, but are simply empathizing with someone who is.
The team first delivered an electric shock to the hands of 16 women, and observed their brain activity using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. The team found that their brains were activated in several areas, including both sensory and emotional regions.
They then delivered an electric shock to the hand of each woman's partner instead. The women were allowed to see the shock being administered, but were prevented from watching their partner's face during the treatment. This eliminated a large part of the emotional response one might expect from watching a friend in pain.
Even so, the researchers found that the womens' brains still lit up in the same emotional areas as when their own hand was being shocked1.
The study shows that empathy works by tapping into a brain mechanism that already exists for our own pain, says Singer. This makes us believe we are feeling pain emotionally even when we are not feeling it physically.
Strong bonds
The emotional activity was stronger in some people than in others. The response seemed to be greater in those with a stronger emotional bond, says Singer. "It is very heavy for people who care," says Singer.
The researchers have yet to try the experiment on men, or on people who are not couples. But Uta Frith, a cognitive biologist also at University College London, thinks the experiment would show the same result with any two normal people.
But psychopaths would probably show no emotional response at all, she adds. Psychopaths don't experience empathy, she says, so they have no understanding of how much pain they are inflicting on other people.
Singer thinks the empathic response probably enables us to forge loving bonds, such as between a mother and child. "It has an evolutionary function," she says. In a broader sense, empathy can help us understand what someone else is feeling , be it pain, joy or anger. Such an ability may serve to help ward off danger. "We can ask questions such as: 'Will this person kill me?'," says Singer.
Researchers think it may be possible to suppress the same part of the brain through hypnosis. When hypnotised, people can be made apparently insensitive to pain, stopping them from being conscious of or reacting to painful stimuli, although no one knows exactly how this works. "Pain is subjective perception," says Singer.
Inscribed and endorsed by SeaWaLK at 10:35 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home