Empathy for positive and negative emotions in the gustatory cortex

A social cognition perspective on misophonia

Misophonia is commonly classified by intense emotional reactions to common everyday sounds. The condition has an impact both on the mental health of its sufferers and societally. As yet, formal models on the basis of misophonia are in their infancy. Based on developing behavioural and neuroscientific research we are gaining a growing understanding of the phenomenology and empirical findings in misophonia, such as the importance of context, types of coping strategies used and the activation of particular brain regions. In this article, we argue for a model of misophonia that includes not only the sound but also the context within which sound is perceived and the emotional reaction triggered. We review the current behavioural and neuroimaging literature, which lends support to this idea. Based on the current evidence, we propose that misophonia should be understood within the broader context of social perception and cognition, and not restricted within the narrow domain of being a disorder of auditory processing. We discuss the evidence in support of this hypothesis, as well as the implications for potential treatment approaches. This article is part of the theme issue 'Sensing and feeling: an integrative approach to sensory processing and emotional experience'.

The impact of acute violent videogame exposure on neurocognitive markers of empathic concern

Research examining the purported association between violent gaming and aggression remains controversial due to concerns related to methodology, unclear neurocognitive mechanisms, and the failure to adequately consider the role of individual differences in susceptibility. To help address these concerns, we used fMRI and an emotional empathy task to examine whether acute and cumulative violent gaming exposure were associated with abnormalities in emotional empathy as a function of trait-empathy. Emotional empathy was targeted given its involvement in regulating not only aggression, but also other important social functions such as compassion and prosocial behaviour. We hypothesized that violent gaming exposure increases the risk of aberrant social behaviour by altering the aversive value of distress cues. Contrary to expectations, neither behavioural ratings nor empathy-related brain activity varied as a function of violent gaming exposure. Notably, however, activation patterns in somatosensory and motor cortices reflected an interaction between violent gaming exposure and trait empathy. Thus, our results are inconsistent with a straightforward relationship between violent gaming exposure and reduced empathy. Furthermore, they highlight the importance of considering both individual differences in susceptibility and other aspects of cognition related to social functioning to best inform public concern regarding safe gaming practices.

A neurofunctional signature of subjective disgust generalizes to oral distaste and socio-moral contexts

While disgust originates in the hard-wired mammalian distaste response, the conscious experience of disgust in humans strongly depends on subjective appraisal and may even extend to socio-moral contexts. Here, in a series of studies, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging with machine-learning-based predictive modelling to establish a comprehensive neurobiological model of subjective disgust. The developed neurofunctional signature accurately predicted momentary self-reported subjective disgust across discovery (n = 78) and pre-registered validation (n = 30) cohorts and generalized across core disgust (n = 34 and n = 26), gustatory distaste (n = 30) and socio-moral (unfair offers; n = 43) contexts. Disgust experience was encoded in distributed cortical and subcortical systems, and exhibited distinct and shared neural representations with subjective fear or negative affect in interoceptive-emotional awareness and conscious appraisal systems, while the signatures most accurately predicted the respective target experience. We provide an accurate functional magnetic resonance imaging signature for disgust with a high potential to resolve ongoing evolutionary debates.

The role of self-representation in emotional contagion

Although prior research has implied that emotional contagion occurs automatically and unconsciously, convincing evidence suggests that it is significantly influenced by individuals' perceptions of their relationships with others or with collectives within specific social contexts. This implies a role for self-representation in the process. The present study aimed to offer a novel explanation of the interplay between social contexts and emotional contagion, focusing on the contextualized nature of self-representation and exploring the social factors that shape emotional contagion. It further posits a causal loop among social contexts, self-representation, and emotional contagion. Drawing from the lens of self-representation, this study concludes with a discussion on potential research directions in this field, commencing with an exploration of the antecedents and consequences of emotional contagion and self-representation.

Studying the social mind: An updated summary of findings from the Vietnam Head Injury Study

Lesion mapping studies allow us to evaluate the potential causal contribution of specific brain areas to human cognition and complement other cognitive neuroscience methods, as several authors have recently pointed out. Here, we present an updated summary of the findings from the Vietnam Head Injury Study (VHIS) focusing on the studies conducted over the last decade, that examined the social mind and its intricate neural and cognitive underpinnings. The VHIS is a prospective, long-term follow-up study of Vietnam veterans with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI) and healthy controls (HC). The scope of the work is to present the studies from the latest phases (3 and 4) of the VHIS, 70 studies since 2011, when the Raymont et al. paper was published (Raymont et al., 2011). These studies have contributed to our understanding of human social cognition, including political and religious beliefs, theory of mind, but also executive functions, intelligence, and personality. This work finally discusses the usefulness of lesion mapping as an approach to understanding the functions of the human brain from basic science and clinical perspectives.

Negative emotions enhance memory-guided attention in a visual search task by increasing frontoparietal, insular, and parahippocampal cortical activity

Previous literature demonstrated that long-term memory representations guide spatial attention during visual search in real-world pictures. However, it is currently unknown whether memory-guided visual search is affected by the emotional content of the picture. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), participants were asked to encode the position of high-contrast targets embedded in emotional (negative or positive) or neutral pictures. At retrieval, they performed a visual search for targets presented at the same location as during encoding, but at a much lower contrast. Behaviorally, participants detected more accurately targets presented in negative pictures compared to those in positive or neutral pictures. They were also faster in detecting targets presented at encoding in emotional (negative or positive) pictures than in neutral pictures, or targets not presented during encoding (i.e., memory-guided attention effect). At the neural level, we found increased activation in a large circuit of regions involving the dorsal and ventral frontoparietal cortex, insular and parahippocampal cortex, selectively during the detection of targets presented in negative pictures during encoding. We propose that these regions might form an integrated neural circuit recruited to select and process previously encoded target locations (i.e., memory-guided attention sustained by the frontoparietal cortex) embedded in emotional contexts (i.e., emotional contexts recollection supported by the parahippocampal cortex and emotional monitoring supported by the insular cortex). Ultimately, these findings reveal that negative emotions can enhance memory-guided visual search performance by increasing neural activity in a large-scale brain circuit, contributing to disentangle the complex relationship between emotion, attention, and memory.

Emotion regulation effects of Ayahuasca in experienced subjects during implicit aversive stimulation: An fMRI study

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Ayahuasca is a beverage used in Amazonian traditional medicine and it has been part of the human experience for millennia as well as other different psychoactive plants. Although Ayahuasca has been proposed as potentially therapeutic as an anxiolytic and antidepressant, whilst no studies have been carried out so far investigating their direct effect on brain emotional processing.

AIM OF THE STUDY

This study aimed to measure the emotional acute effect of Ayahuasca on brain response to implicit aversive stimulation using a face recognition task in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Nineteen male experienced Ayahuasca users participated in this study in two fMRI sessions before and after 50 min of the Ayahuasca ingestion. Subjects were presented with pictures of neutral (A) and aversive (B) (fearful or disgusted) faces from the Pictures of Facial Affect Series. Subjects were instructed to identify the gender of the faces (gender discrimination task) while the emotional content was implicit. Subjective mood states were also evaluated before Ayahuasca intake and after the second fMRI session, using a visual analogue mood scale (VAMS).

RESULTS

During the aversive stimuli, the activity in the bilateral amygdala was attenuated by Ayahuasca (qFDR<0.05). Furthermore, in an exploratory analysis of the effects after intake, Ayahuasca enhances the activation in the insular cortex bilaterally, as well as in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (qFDR<0.05). In the psychometric VAMS scale, subjects reported attenuation of both anxiety and mental sedation (p < 0.01) during acute effects.

CONCLUSIONS

Together, all reported results including neuroimaging, behavioral data and psychometric self-report suggest that Ayahuasca can promote an emotion regulation mechanism in response to aversive stimuli with corresponding improved cognition including reduced anxiety and mental sedation.

Impact of a longitudinal course on medical professionalism on the empathy of medical students

OBJECTIVE

Medical education should enhance empathy. We examined, using self-assessment instruments and standardized patients (SPs), the impact on empathy, of a multi-year intervention (years 4-6 of medical training) that uses reflective learning approaches.

METHODS

241 final-year medical students participated; 110 from the 2018 graduation class (non-intervention group) and 131 from the 2019 graduation class (intervention group). Participants completed two self-reported empathy questionnaires - the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Students (JSE-S) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) - and a personality questionnaire, the NEO Five-Factor Inventory. Additionally, SPs in a simulated station assessed participants' empathy with two patient-reported instruments: the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) scale and the Jefferson Scale of Patient Perceptions of Physician Empathy (JSPPPE).

RESULTS

Empathy scores were significantly higher in the intervention group compared to the non-intervention group when assessed by the SP (p < 0.001). No differences were found in self-reported questionnaires between the two groups.

CONCLUSION

A longitudinal, multi-year reflection-based intervention enhanced empathy amongst medical students as assessed by SPs, but not when assessed by student self-reported measures.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Multi-year reflective learning interventions during clinical training nurture empathy in medical students. Assessments completed by SPs or patients may enhance the evaluation of empathy.

Boosting interpersonal emotion regulation through facial imitation: functional neuroimaging foundations

Empathic function, which is primarily manifested by facial imitation, is believed to play a pivotal role in interpersonal emotion regulation for mood reinstatement. To explore this association and its neural substrates, we performed a questionnaire survey (study l) to identify the relationship between empathy and interpersonal emotion regulation; and a task-mode fMRI study (study 2) to explore how facial imitation, as a fundamental component of empathic processes, promotes the interpersonal emotion regulation effect. Study 1 showed that affective empathy was positively correlated with interpersonal emotion regulation. Study 2 showed smaller negative emotions in facial imitation interpersonal emotion regulation (subjects imitated experimenter's smile while followed the interpersonal emotion regulation guidance) than in normal interpersonal emotion regulation (subjects followed the interpersonal emotion regulation guidance) and Watch conditions. Mirror neural system (e.g. inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobe) and empathy network exhibited greater activations in facial imitation interpersonal emotion regulation compared with normal interpersonal emotion regulation condition. Moreover, facial imitation interpersonal emotion regulation compared with normal interpersonal emotion regulation exhibited increased functional coupling from mirror neural system to empathic and affective networks during interpersonal emotion regulation. Furthermore, the connectivity of the right orbital inferior frontal gyrus-rolandic operculum lobe mediated the association between the accuracy of facial imitation and the interpersonal emotion regulation effect. These results show that the interpersonal emotion regulation effect can be enhanced by the target's facial imitation through increased functional coupling from mirror neural system to empathic and affective neural networks.

The Seeking Proxies for Internal States (SPIS) Model of OCD - A Comprehensive Review of Current Findings and Implications for Future Directions

The Seeking Proxies for Internal States (SPIS) model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) explains symptoms of OCD as stemming from attenuated access to internal states, which is compensated for by using proxies, which are indices of these states that are more discernible or less ambiguous. Internal states in the SPIS model are subjective states that are not accessible to others, encompassing physiological states, motivations, preferences, memories, and emotions. Compensatory proxies in OCD include fixed rules and rituals as well as seeking and relying on external information. In the present review, we outline the SPIS model and describe its basic tenets. We then use the SPIS conceptualization to explain two pivotal OCD-related phenomena - obsessive doubt and compulsive rituals. Next, we provide a detailed overview of current empirical evidence supporting the SPIS in several domains, including physiological states, emotions, sense of understanding, decision-making, and sense of agency. We conclude by discussing possible neural correlates of the difficulty in accessing internal states, focusing on the anterior insular cortex (AIC) and highlighting potential clinical implications of the model to the treatment of OCD.

The physiological measurement and evaluation of empathy of video content

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in video content consumption, but measuring viewers' empathy towards the content has been limited to subjective evaluations or attached physiological apparatus. In this study, we introduced a novel non-contact physiological method for measuring empathy towards video content by assessing the synchronization of facial micromovements between the subject and object (i.e., person) within the media. We recorded facial micromovements and heart rate variability (HRV) remotely using a camera while 62 subjects watched one video each, designed and validated to elicit one of four two-dimensional emotions: pleasant-aroused, pleasant-relaxed, unpleasant-aroused, and unpleasant-relaxed. We also collected the subjects' self-assessed emotions and empathy using a questionnaire. The results confirmed that the stimuli effectively induced the intended arousal in the subjects, as evidenced by both self-reported emotions and HRV responses that suggested higher arousal was associated with stronger activity in the sympathetic nervous system. A closer examination of HRV indicators, such as SDNN and Total Power values, showed an amplification during the unpleasant state. We interpret this as the body's dynamic response to stressors, underlining the autonomic nervous system's proactive role in responding to such stimuli. In a broader context, our results emphasized that while subjects showcased augmented empathy during aroused conditions, the introduction of stressors, represented by unpleasant content, led to a dampening of this empathetic response. This findings demonstrate the potential of non-contact physiological methods for measuring empathy toward video content.

Behavioral and neural underpinnings of empathic characteristics in a Humanitude-care expert

Background

Humanitude approaches have shown positive effects in elderly care. However, the behavioral and neural underpinnings of empathic characteristics in Humanitude-care experts remain unknown.

Methods

We investigated the empathic characteristics of a Humanitude-care expert (YG) and those of age-, sex-, and race-matched controls (n = 13). In a behavioral study, we measured subjective valence and arousal ratings and facial electromyography (EMG) of the corrugator supercilii and zygomatic major muscles while participants passively observed dynamic facial expressions associated with anger and happiness and their randomized mosaic patterns. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study, we measured brain activity while participants passively observed the same dynamic facial expressions and mosaics. In a structural MRI study, we acquired structural MRI data and analyzed gray matter volume.

Results

Our behavioral data showed that YG experienced higher subjective arousal and showed stronger facial EMG activity congruent with stimulus facial expressions compared with controls. The functional MRI data demonstrated that YG showed stronger activity in the ventral premotor cortex (PMv; covering the precentral gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus) and posterior middle temporal gyrus in the right hemisphere in response to dynamic facial expressions versus dynamic mosaics compared with controls. The structural MRI data revealed higher regional gray matter volume in the right PMv in YG than in controls.

Conclusion

These results suggest that Humanitude-care experts have behavioral and neural characteristics associated with empathic social interactions.

Associations of Empathy with Teacher-Student Interactions: A Potential Ternary Model

Empathy has garnered increasing recognition as a pivotal component of teacher-student interactions and a notable determinant of student achievement. Nevertheless, the exact impact of empathy on teacher-student interactions remains elusive, despite research endeavors into the neural mechanisms of teacher empathy. Our article examines the cognitive neural processes of teacher empathy during various forms of teacher-student interactions. To this end, we first present a concise review of theoretical considerations related to empathy and interactions, followed by an extensive discussion of teacher-student interactions and teacher empathy through both "single-brain" and "dual-brain" perspectives. Drawing on these discussions, we propose a potential model of empathy that integrates the affective contagion, cognitive evaluation, and behavior prediction aspects of teacher-student interactions. Finally, future research directions are discussed.

Effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation combined with action-observation-execution on social interaction and communication in autism spectrum disorder: Feasibility study

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the feasibility of a combined high-frequency rTMS (HF-rTMS) with action observation and execution (AOE) on social interaction and communication in children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Fifteen children underwent 10 sessions of 5-Hz HF-rTMS on the right inferior frontal gyrus combined with AOE. An experimental group received the real HF-rTMS while the control group received the sham one. For the AOE protocol, they were instructed to watch and imitate a video showing the procedure, including reaching and grasping tasks, gustatory tasks, and facial expressions. Their behavioural outcomes were evaluated using the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scale (VABS) and electroencephalograms (EEGs) recorded at three time points: baseline, immediately after each treatment, and at the 1-week follow-up after the 10th treatment.

RESULTS

There were increased VABS subitem scores in the experimental group, including the receptive, expressive, domestic, and community scores but no such increase was observed in the control group. For the EEG, the beta rhythm at C3 and C4 increased in the experimental group. Additionally, positive correlations were observed between changes in the scores for the expressive subitem and changes in the beta rhythm on the C4 electrode at baseline and immediately after treatment in the experimental group. The control group showed no significant differences in any items for both observation and imitation times.

CONCLUSION

Ten sessions of HF-rTMS combined with AOE could improve both the subitems of communication and daily living skills domain in children aged 7-12 years with ASD. Although it is still inconclusive, this behavioural improvement may be partly attributable to increased cortical activity, as evidenced by beta rhythms.

The role of empathy in shared intentionality: Contributions from Inter-Processual Self theory

Research in psychology related to the conceptualization of empathy has been on the rise in the last decades. However, we argue that there is still space for further research to help capture the important notion of empathy and its theoretical and conceptual depth. Following a critical review of the current state of the research that conceptualizes and measures empathy, we focus on works that highlight the importance of a shared vision and its relevance in psychology and neuroscience. Considering the state of the art of current neuroscientific and psychological approaches to empathy, we argue for the relevance of shared intention and shared vision in empathy-related actions. Upon review of different models that emphasize a shared vision for informing research on empathy, we suggest that a newly developed theory of self, human growth and action–the so-called Inter-Processual Self theory (IPS)–can significantly and novelly inform the theorization on empathy beyond what the literature has stated to date. Then, we show how an understanding of integrity as a relational act that requires empathy is an essential mechanism for current key research on empathy and its related concepts and models. Ultimately, we aim to present IPS as a distinctive proposal to expand upon the conceptualization of empathy.

Experiencing sweet taste is associated with an increase in prosocial behavior

Taste may be the first sense that emerged in evolution. Taste is also a very important sense since it signals potential beneficial or dangerous effects of foods. Given this fundamental role of taste in our lives, it is not surprising that taste also affects our psychological perception and thinking. For example, previous research demonstrated remarkable psychological effects of sweet taste experiences, suggesting that sweetness may be a source domain for prosocial functioning. Recent research reports that briefly experiencing sweet taste made participants more helpful in their intentions and behavior. The current study aims to test this hypothesis and to examine the neural underpinnings of this effect by using an fMRI approach. Participants were asked to taste sweet, salty, and neutral taste while lying in the fMRI scanner. Subsequently their prosocial behavior was tested by playing the dictator game, a measure of prosocial behavior. Results showed that sweet taste was associated with an increase in prosocial behavior compared with previously experiencing salty taste but did not affect control stimuli ratings. FMRI results revealed a modulation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex associated with this sweetness effect. This brain area is known to play a central role for monitoring conflicts and decisions and has been directly linked to selfish and prosocial economic decisions. The results demonstrate that sweet taste has complex psychological effects including positive and socially desirable outcomes. We discuss the results with other studies on psychological sweetness effects and suggest possible implications of these findings.

Altered hierarchical organization between empathy and gambling networks in disordered gamblers

BACKGROUND

Despite the demonstrated association between empathy and gambling at the behavioral level, limited neuroimaging research on empathy and gambling disorder (GD) has been conducted. Whether and how the brain network of empathy and that of gambling interact in disordered gamblers has not been investigated. This study aimed to address this research gap by examining the hierarchical organizational patterns, in which the differences of causal interactions of these networks between disordered gamblers and healthy controls were revealed.

METHODS

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data of 32 disordered gamblers and 56 healthy controls were included in the formal analysis. Dynamic causal modeling was used to examine the effective connectivity within and between empathy and gambling networks among all participants.

RESULTS

All participants showed significant effective connectivity within and between empathy and gambling networks. However, compared with healthy controls, disordered gamblers displayed more excitatory effective connectivity within the gambling network, the tendency to display more excitatory effective connectivity from the empathy network to the gambling network, and reduced inhibitory effective connectivity from the gambling network to the empathy network.

CONCLUSION

The exploratory study was the first to examine the effective connectivity within and between empathy and gambling networks among disordered gamblers and healthy controls. These results provided insights into the causal relationship between empathy and gambling from the neuroscientific perspective and further confirmed that disordered gamblers show altered effective connectivity within and between these two brain networks, which may be considered to be a potential neural index for GD identification. In addition, the altered interactions between empathy and gambling networks may also indicate the potential targets for the neuro-stimulation intervention approach (e.g., transcranial magnetic stimulation).

The Relationship between Face Processing, Cognitive and Affective Empathy

This study aims to examine the relationship between affective and cognitive empathy scores and perceptual face recognition skills. A total of 18 young adults participated in the study. Cognitive and Affective Empathy Test (TECA), The eyes Test and an experimental task were carried out. The experimental task has two blocks, a presentation, and a recognition phase, under the Karolinska battery of images expressing different emotions. Cognitive empathy sub-factors were found to be related to the hit rate on the recognition of surprise faces as well as the discarding of faces of disgust. In relation to the hit rate on discarding faces of disgust, this was related to perspective taking. Reaction time and Cognitive empathy subfactors were found to be positively correlated to the recognition of disgust, surprise, and sadness. Lastly, Perspective taking was also related to the discarding of disgust reaction time in a direct way. The relationships between affective empathy and other measures for emotional face recognition were not statistically significant. Knowledge of individual differences in cognitive and affective empathy, as well as of their relationship with behavioral responses such as the recognition or dismissal of emotional faces are of interest for social interaction and in psychotherapy.

Imitation encourages empathic capacity toward other individuals with physical disabilities

Many people have difficulty empathizing with others who have dissimilar characteristics, such as physical disabilities. We hypothesized that people with no disabilities imitating the movements of individuals with disabilities could improve the empathic capacity toward their difficulties. To evaluate this hypothesis, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the neural activity patterns of 26 healthy participants while they felt the difficulties of individuals with hemiplegia by adopting their perspective. The participants initially either imitated or observed hemiplegic hand movements shown in video clips. Subsequently, the videos were rewatched and their difficulties were rated. Analysis of the subjective rating scores indicated that after imitating the hemiplegic movements, the participants felt into the difficulties of hemiplegia better than if they simply observed them. The cross-validation approach of multivoxel pattern analyses demonstrated that the information regarding the effect of imitation on empathizing with the difficulties was represented in specific activation patterns of brain regions involved in the mirror neuron system and cognitive empathy by comparing to other conditions that did not contain the information. The cross-classification approach detected distinct activation patterns in the brain regions involved in affective and cognitive empathy, commonly while imitating the hemiplegic movements and subsequently feeling them. This indicated that the common representation related to these two types of empathy existed between imitating and feeling the hemiplegic movements. Furthermore, representational similarity analysis revealed that activity patterns in the anterior cingulate cortex linked to affective empathy tuned to the subjective assessment of hemiplegic movements. Our findings indicate that imitating the movements of individuals with hemiplegia triggered the affective empathic response and improved the cognitive empathic response toward them. The affective empathic response also linked the subjective assessment to the difficulties of hemiplegia, which was especially modulated by the experience of imitation. Imitating the movements of individuals with disabilities likely encourages empathic capacity from both affective and cognitive aspects, resulting in people with no disabilities precisely feeling what they are feeling.

Free Your Mind: Creative Thinking Contributes to Overcoming Conflict-Related Biases

Conflicts between groups are difficult to resolve, partly because humans tend to be biased in judging outgroup members. The aim of the current article is to review findings on the link between creativity and conflict-related biases and to offer a model that views creative cognition as an ability that may contribute to overcoming conflict-related biases. Our proposed model conforms to the twofold model of creativity. According to this model, creativity involves a generation phase and an evaluation phase, and these phases correspond to the neural mechanisms that underlie conflict-related biases. Specifically, we contend that the generation phase of creativity affects conflict-related biases by exerting an influence on stereotypes and prejudice, outgroup-targeted emotions, and ingroup empathy biases, all of which rely on the default mode network. Conversely, the evaluation phase of creativity, which is usually associated with activation in the executive control network and action-observation system, may be related to herding behaviors. Building on the shared mechanisms of creativity and conflicts, we propose that studies examining creativity-based interventions may be effective in promoting reconciliation.

Knowing what you feel: Inferior frontal gyrus-based structural and functional neural patterns underpinning adaptive body awareness

BACKGROUND

Heightened body awareness (BA) is conducive for increasing understanding of bodily state and improves individuals' health and well-being. Although there has been cumulative research concentrating on the self-perceived tendency to focus on negatively valenced interoceptive sensations, the specific structural and functional neural patterns underlying BA and their role in the relationship between BA and individual well-being remain unclear.

METHODS

Voxel-based morphometry and whole brain functional connectivity analyses were conducted to examine the structural and functional neural patterns, respectively, in 686 healthy subjects. BA and subjective well-being were assessed using questionnaires.

RESULTS

BA was inversely related to gray matter volume of the right inferior frontal gyrus, opercular part (IFGoperc). Higher BA was correlated with enhanced IFGoperc-precuneus and IFGoperc-anterior supramarginal gyrus connectivities, and with decreased IFGoperc-lateral occipital cortex and IFGoperc-medial frontal cortex connectivities. The inferior frontal gyrus, triangular part (in the fronto-parietal task control network) acted as the hub that linked the sensory/somatomotor network, the default mode network, and the dorsal and ventral attention network. The IFGoperc-precuneus connectivity moderated the association between BA and subjective well-being.

LIMITATIONS

We were unable to rank all the networks by their relative importance, because the absolute weighted value in each module was not calculated.

CONCLUSION

Our findings demonstrated that BA was reflected by specific neural patterns mainly involved in cognitive-affective control, attentional and self-referential processing, as well as multisensory integration, which could offer some references for current therapies (e.g., mindfulness, yoga training) that are dedicated to solving health problems and improving individual well-being.

A novel approach to measure brain-to-brain spatial and temporal alignment during positive empathy

Empathy is defined as the ability to vicariously experience others' suffering (vicarious pain) or feeling their joy (vicarious reward). While most neuroimaging studies have focused on vicarious pain and describe similar neural responses during the observed and the personal negative affective involvement, only initial evidence has been reported for the neural responses to others' rewards and positive empathy. Here, we propose a novel approach, based on the simultaneous recording of multi-subject EEG signals and exploiting the wavelet coherence decomposition to measure the temporal alignment between ERPs in a dyad of interacting subjects. We used the Third-Party Punishment (TPP) paradigm to elicit the personal and vicarious experiences. During a positive experience, we observed the simultaneous presence in both agents of the Late Positive Potential (LPP), an ERP component related to emotion processing, as well as the existence of an inter-subject ERPs synchronization in the related time window. Moreover, the amplitude of the LPP synchronization was modulated by the presence of a human-agent. Finally, the localized brain circuits subtending the ERP-synchronization correspond to key-regions of personal and vicarious reward. Our findings suggest that the temporal and spatial ERPs alignment might be a novel and direct proxy measure of empathy.

Association between empathy and drinking among a community sample of heavy drinkers: Sex differences and neural correlates

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a major health problem, yet most individuals with AUD do not perceive a need for formal treatment and do not receive treatment. The lack of treatment seeking among individuals with AUD may suggest a lack of self-awareness and insight into the seriousness of AUD related problems, as well as lack of empathy for the impact of one's drinking on others. Recent work has suggested that empathy may be impaired among individuals seeking treatment for AUD. Further these impairments may differ by sex such that males with lower empathy reported more drinking consequences and greater drinking intensity, but there was no association between empathy and drinking among females. The current study used regression analyses (alpha = 0.05) to examine the association between empathy (as measured by the four scales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index), independent components of gray matter volume in regions associated with empathy, and drinking variables among non-treatment seeking drinkers with AUD (N = 136) and also examined these effects by sex. Results showed greater perspective taking was associated with less temporoparietal and frontotemporal gray matter volume (B(SE) = -0.912 (0.043), p = 0.034). An interaction between perspective taking and sex was associated with craving, such that higher perspective taking was associated with less craving for males only (B(SE) = -0.48 (0.243), p = 0.049; R2 = 0.087). Empathic concern was related to lower percent heavy drinking days for both males and females (B(SE) = -1.57 (0.743), p = 0.035; R2 = 0.11). The current study found empathy may be an important predictor of craving for males and frequency of heavy drinking for males and females. Future work should investigate whether empathy predicts treatment seeking.

Aberrant motor contagion of emotions in psychopathy and high-functioning autism

Psychopathy and autism are both associated with aberrant social skills and empathy, yet only psychopaths are markedly antisocial and violent. Here, we compared the functional neural alterations underlying these two groups that both have aberrant empathetic abilities but distinct behavioral phenotypes. We studied 19 incarcerated male offenders with high psychopathic traits, 20 males with high-functioning autism, and 19 age-matched healthy controls. All groups underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while they viewed dynamic happy, angry, and disgusted faces or listened to laughter and crying sounds. Psychopathy was associated with reduced somatomotor responses to almost all expressions, while participants with autism demonstrated less marked and emotion-specific alterations in the somatomotor area. These data suggest that psychopathy and autism involve both common and distinct functional alterations in the brain networks involved in the socioemotional processing. The alterations are more profound in psychopathy, possibly reflecting the more severely disturbed socioemotional brain networks in this population.

Effects of Exercise Training on the Autonomic Nervous System with a Focus on Anti-Inflammatory and Antioxidants Effects

Studies show that the autonomic nervous system (ANS) has an important impact on health in general. In response to environmental demands, homeostatic processes are often compromised, therefore determining an increase in the sympathetic nervous system (SNS)’s functions and a decrease in the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS)’s functions. In modern societies, chronic stress associated with an unhealthy lifestyle contributes to ANS dysfunction. In this review, we provide a brief introduction to the ANS network, its connections to the HPA axis and its stress responses and give an overview of the critical implications of ANS in health and disease—focused specifically on the immune system, cardiovascular, oxidative stress and metabolic dysregulation. The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA), the SNS and more recently the PNS have been identified as regulating the immune system. The HPA axis and PNS have anti-inflammatory effects and the SNS has been shown to have both pro- and anti-inflammatory effects. The positive impact of physical exercise (PE) is well known and has been studied by many researchers, but its negative impact has been less studied. Depending on the type, duration and individual characteristics of the person doing the exercise (age, gender, disease status, etc.), PE can be considered a physiological stressor. The negative impact of PE seems to be connected with the oxidative stress induced by effort.

Non-Contact Measurement of Empathy Based on Micro-Movement Synchronization

Tracking consumer empathy is one of the biggest challenges for advertisers. Although numerous studies have shown that consumers’ empathy affects purchasing, there are few quantitative and unobtrusive methods for assessing whether the viewer is sharing congruent emotions with the advertisement. This study suggested a non-contact method for measuring empathy by evaluating the synchronization of micro-movements between consumers and people within the media. Thirty participants viewed 24 advertisements classified as either empathy or non-empathy advertisements. For each viewing, we recorded the facial data and subjective empathy scores. We recorded the facial micro-movements, which reflect the ballistocardiography (BCG) motion, through the carotid artery remotely using a camera without any sensory attachment to the participant. Synchronization in cardiovascular measures (e.g., heart rate) is known to indicate higher levels of empathy. We found that through cross-entropy analysis, the more similar the micro-movements between the participant and the person in the advertisement, the higher the participant’s empathy scores for the advertisement. The study suggests that non-contact BCG methods can be utilized in cases where sensor attachment is ineffective (e.g., measuring empathy between the viewer and the media content) and can be a complementary method to subjective empathy scales.

Functional localization and categorization of intentional decisions in humans: A meta-analysis of brain imaging studies

Brain-imaging research on intentional decision-making often employs a "free-choice" paradigm, in which participants choose among options with identical values or outcomes. Although the medial prefrontal cortex has commonly been associated with choices, there is no consensus on the wider network that underlies diverse intentional decisions and behaviours. Our systematic literature search identified 35 fMRI/PET experiments using various free-choice paradigms, with appropriate control conditions using external instructions. An Activation Likelihood Estimate (ALE) meta-analysis showed that, compared with external instructions, intentional decisions consistently activate the medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the left insula and the inferior parietal lobule. We then categorized the studies into four different types according to their experimental designs: reactive motor intention, perceptual intention, inhibitory intention, and cognitive intention. We conducted conjunction and contrast meta-analyses to identify consistent and selective spatial convergence of brain activation within each specific category of intentional decision. Finally, we used meta-analytic decoding to probe cognitive processes underlying free choices. Our findings suggest that the neurocognitive process underlying intentional decision incorporates anatomically separated components subserving distinct cognitive and computational roles.

Early Right Motor Cortex Response to Happy and Fearful Facial Expressions: A TMS Motor-Evoked Potential Study

The ability to rapidly process others' emotional signals is crucial for adaptive social interactions. However, to date it is still unclear how observing emotional facial expressions affects the reactivity of the human motor cortex. To provide insights on this issue, we employed single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate corticospinal motor excitability. Healthy participants observed happy, fearful and neutral pictures of facial expressions while receiving TMS over the left or right motor cortex at 150 and 300 ms after picture onset. In the early phase (150 ms), we observed an enhancement of corticospinal excitability for the observation of happy and fearful emotional faces compared to neutral expressions specifically in the right hemisphere. Interindividual differences in the disposition to experience aversive feelings (personal distress) in interpersonal emotional contexts predicted the early increase in corticospinal excitability for emotional faces. No differences in corticospinal excitability were observed at the later time (300 ms) or in the left M1. These findings support the notion that emotion perception primes the body for action and highlights the role of the right hemisphere in implementing a rapid and transient facilitatory response to emotional arousing stimuli, such as emotional facial expressions.

Development of functional network architecture explains changes in children's altruistically motivated helping

Childhood is marked by profound changes in prosocial behaviour. The underlying motivational mechanisms remain poorly understood. We investigated the development of altruistically motivated helping in middle childhood and the neurocognitive and -affective mechanisms driving this development. One-hundred and twenty seven 6-12 year-old children performed a novel gustatory costly helping task designed to measure altruistic motivations of helping behaviour. Neurocognitive and -affective mechanisms including emotion regulation, emotional clarity and attentional reorienting were assessed experimentally through an extensive task-battery while functional brain activity and connectivity were measured during an empathy for taste paradigm and during rest. Altruistically motivated helping increased with age. Out of all mechanisms probed for, only emotional clarity increased with age and accounted for altruistically motivated helping. This was associated with greater functional integration of the empathy-related network with fronto-parietal brain regions at rest. We isolate a highly specific neuroaffective mechanism as the crucial driver of altruistically motivated helping during child development.

The Resting-State Electroencephalogram Microstate Correlations With Empathy and Their Moderating Effect on the Relationship Between Empathy and Disgust

Humans have a natural ability to understand the emotions and feelings of others, whether one actually witnesses the situation of another, perceives it from a photograph, reads about it in a fiction book, or merely imagines it. This is the phenomenon of empathy, which requires us to mentally represent external information to experience the emotions of others. Studies have shown that individuals with high empathy have high anterior insula and adjacent frontal operculum activation when they are aware of negative emotions in others. As a negative emotion, disgust processing involves insula coupling. What are the neurophysiological characteristics for regulating the levels of empathy and disgust? To answer this question, we collected electroencephalogram microstates (EEG-ms) of 196 college students at rest and used the Disgust Scale and Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The results showed that: (1) there was a significant positive correlation between empathy and disgust sensitivity; (2) the empathy score and the intensity of transition possibility between EEG-ms C and D were significantly positively correlated; and (3) the connection strength between the transition possibility of EEG-ms C and D could adjust the relationship between the disgust sensitivity score and the empathy score. This study provides new neurophysiological characteristics for an understanding of the regulate relationship between empathy and disgust and provides a new perspective on emotion and attention.

Intraperitoneal injection of lithium chloride induces lateralized activation of the insular cortex in adult mice

Insular cortex is a critical brain region that participates in the interoceptive sensations. Here, we combined the iDISCO + method and Fos immunostaining to confirm that the middle part of the right-side, but not the left-side, insular cortex in adult male mice is activated by intraperitoneal injection of lithium chloride. Lateralized activation of the insular cortex is also observed in adult female mice, but not in young or aged male mice. Furthermore, asymmetrical activation of the insular cortex was completely blocked when both sides of the vagal nerve are transected, whereas intravenous injection of lithium chloride has no effect on the insular activation. Combined together, these results indicate that the insular cortex unilaterally responds to aversive visceral stimuli in an age-dependent way and this process depends on the vagal afferent pathways.

Gender differences in cortical morphological networks

Cortical morphological networks (CMN), where each network models the relationship in morphology between different cortical brain regions quantified using a specific measurement (e.g., cortical thickness), have not been investigated with respect to gender differences in the human brain. Cortical processes are expected to involve complex interactions between different brain regions, univariate methods thus might overlook informative gender markers. Hence, by leveraging machine learning techniques with the potential to highlight multivariate interacting effects, we found that the most discriminative CMN connections between males and females were derived from the left hemisphere using the mean sulcal depth as measurement. However, for both left and right hemispheres, the first most discriminative morphological connection revealed across all cortical attributes involved (entorhinal cortex ↔ caudal anterior cingulate cortex) and (entorhinal cortex ↔ transverse temporal cortex) respectively, which gives us new insights into behavioral gender differences from an omics perspective and might explain why males and females learn differently.

Probing the role of the right inferior frontal gyrus during Pain-Related empathy processing: Evidence from fMRI and TMS

Recent studies have suggested that the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) may be involved in pain-related empathy. To verify the role of the rIFG, we performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to replicate previous research and further designed a noninvasive repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) experiment to probe the causal role of the rIFG in pain-related empathy processing. We assigned 74 volunteers (37 females) to three groups. Group 1 (n = 26) performed a task in which participants were required to perceive pain in others (task of pain: TP) and we used fMRI to observe the activity of the rIFG during pain-related empathy processing. Then, we applied online rTMS to the rIFG and the vertex site (as reference site) to observe the performance of Group 2 (n = 24; performing TP) and Group 3 (n = 24; performing a control task of identifying body parts; task of body: TB). fMRI experiment demonstrated stronger activation in the rIFG than in the vertex during the perception of pain in others (p < .0001, Bonferroni-corrected). rTMS experiment indicated that when the rIFG was temporarily disrupted, participants perceived pain in others significantly more slowly (p < .0001, Bonferroni-corrected) than when the vertex was disrupted. Our results provide evidence that the rIFG is involved in pain-related empathy processing, which yields insights into how the brain perceives pain in others.

Physiological Resonance in Empathic Stress: Insights from Nonlinear Dynamics of Heart Rate Variability

Because most humans live and work in populated environments, researchers recently took into account that people may not only experience first-hand stress, but also second-hand stress related to the ability to empathically share another person’s stress response. Recently, researchers have begun to more closely examine the existence of such empathic stress and highlighted the human propensity to physiologically resonate with the stress responses of others. As in case of first-hand stress, empathic stress could be deleterious for health if people experience exacerbated activation of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal and autonomic nervous systems. Thus, exploring empathic stress in an observer watching someone else experiencing stress is critical to gain a better understanding of physiological resonance and conduct strategies for health prevention. In the current study, we investigated the influence of empathic stress responses on heart rate variability (HRV) with a specific focus on nonlinear dynamics. Classic and nonlinear markers of HRV time series were computed in both targets and observers during a modified Trier social stress test (TSST). We capitalized on multiscale entropy, a reliable marker of complexity for depicting neurovisceral interactions (brain-to-heart and heart-to-brain) and their role in physiological resonance. State anxiety and affect were evaluated as well. While classic markers of HRV were not impacted by empathic stress, we showed that the complexity marker reflected the existence of empathic stress in observers. More specifically, a linear model highlighted a physiological resonance phenomenon. We conclude on the relevance of entropy in HRV dynamics, as a marker of complexity in neurovisceral interactions reflecting physiological resonance in empathic stress.

Amplitude of Low-Frequency Fluctuations and Resting-State Functional Connectivity in Trait Positive Empathy: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Positive empathy is the ability to share and understand the positive emotions of others. In recent years, although positive empathy has received more and more attention, trait positive empathy (TPE)-related spontaneous brain activity during the resting state has not been extensively explored. We used the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFFs) and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) of the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging signal to explore TPE-associated brain regions. We found that higher TPE was associated with higher ALFFs in the right insula and lower ALFFs in the right subgenual cingulate (SGC), right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), and right precuneus. RSFC analyses showed that higher functional connectivity between the right insula and left parahippocampal gyrus, left inferior parietal lobule and left middle temporal gyrus were related to higher TPE. Moreover, the connection between the right dmPFC and the left medial orbitofrontal cortex, left middle occipital gyrus and left posterior cingulate cortex were positively related to TPE. Meanwhile, the strength of functional connectivity between the right SGC and left supplementary motor area was positively associated with TPE. These findings may indicate that TPE is linked to emotional (especially the experience of more positive emotions and better negative emotion regulation) and self-referential processing.

Dance on the Brain: Enhancing Intra- and Inter-Brain Synchrony

Dance has traditionally been viewed from a Eurocentric perspective as a mode of self-expression that involves the human body moving through space, performed for the purposes of art, and viewed by an audience. In this Hypothesis and Theory article, we synthesize findings from anthropology, sociology, psychology, dance pedagogy, and neuroscience to propose The Synchronicity Hypothesis of Dance, which states that humans dance to enhance both intra- and inter-brain synchrony. We outline a neurocentric definition of dance, which suggests that dance involves neurobehavioral processes in seven distinct areas including sensory, motor, cognitive, social, emotional, rhythmic, and creative. We explore The Synchronicity Hypothesis of Dance through several avenues. First, we examine evolutionary theories of dance, which suggest that dance drives interpersonal coordination. Second, we examine fundamental movement patterns, which emerge throughout development and are omnipresent across cultures of the world. Third, we examine how each of the seven neurobehaviors increases intra- and inter-brain synchrony. Fourth, we examine the neuroimaging literature on dance to identify the brain regions most involved in and affected by dance. The findings presented here support our hypothesis that we engage in dance for the purpose of intrinsic reward, which as a result of dance-induced increases in neural synchrony, leads to enhanced interpersonal coordination. This hypothesis suggests that dance may be helpful to repattern oscillatory activity, leading to clinical improvements in autism spectrum disorder and other disorders with oscillatory activity impairments. Finally, we offer suggestions for future directions and discuss the idea that our consciousness can be redefined not just as an individual process but as a shared experience that we can positively influence by dancing together.

Shared Characteristics of Intrinsic Connectivity Networks Underlying Interoceptive Awareness and Empathy

Awareness of internal bodily sensations (interoceptive awareness; IA) and its connection to complex socioemotional abilities like empathy has been postulated, yet the functional neural circuitry they share remains poorly understood. The present fMRI study employs independent component analysis (ICA) to investigate which empathy facet (Cognitive or Affective) shares resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) and/or BOLD variability (rsBOLD) with IA. Healthy participants viewed an abstract nonsocial movie demonstrated to evoke strong rsFC in brain networks resembling rest (InScapes), and resultant rsFC and rsBOLD data were correlated with self-reported empathy and IA questionnaires. We demonstrate a bidirectional behavioral and neurobiological relationship between empathy and IA, depending on the type of empathy interrogated: Affective empathy and IA share both rsFC and rsBOLD, while Cognitive empathy and IA only share rsBOLD. Specifically, increased rsFC in the right inferior frontal operculum (rIFO) of a larger attention network was associated with increased vicarious experience but decreased awareness of inner body sensations. Furthermore, increased rsBOLD between brain regions of an interoceptive network was related to increased sensitivity to internal sensations along with decreased Affective empathy. Finally, increased rsBOLD between brain regions subserving a mentalizing network related to not only an improved ability to take someone's perspective, but also a better sense of mind-body interconnectedness. Overall, these findings suggest that the awareness of one's own internal body changes (IA) is related to the socioemotional ability of feeling and understanding another's emotional state (empathy) and critically, that this relationship is reflected in the brain's resting state neuroarchitecture. Methodologically, this work highlights the importance of utilizing rsBOLD as a complementary window alongside rsFC to better understand neurological phenomena. Our results may be beneficial in aiding diagnosis in clinical populations such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), where participants may be unable to complete tasks or questionnaires due to the severity of their symptoms.

Frontolimbic brain volume abnormalities in bipolar disorder with suicide attempts

Over 2.3 million people in the United States live with bipolar disorder. Sixty percent of those with a bipolar disorder diagnosis attempt suicide at least once in their lifetime and up to 19% die by suicide. However, the neurobiology of suicide attempts in bipolar disorder remains unclear. We studied the gray matter volume (GMV) of 81 participants with a bipolar-I diagnosis (age-range: 14-34 years old) and 40 healthy participants (age-range 14.7-32 years old) to compare their neuroanatomy and histories of suicide attempt. In the bipolar group, 42 were manic with ages ranging from 14-30.6 years, and 39 were depressed with ages ranging from 14-34.3 years). Twenty three bipolar participants had a suicide attempt history, and 58 had no suicide attempt history. All participants completed behavioral/diagnostic assessments and MRI. We focused on a predefined frontolimbic circuitry in bipolar disorder versus controls to first identify diagnostic GMV correlates and to specifically identify GMV correlates for suicide attempt history. We found reduced GMV in bipolar diagnosis versus controls in the subgenual cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices. Our observed regional GMV reductions were associated with histories of suicide attempts and measures of individual variations in current suicidal ideation at the time of scanning.

Fear-related signals are prioritised in visual, somatosensory and spatial systems

The human brain has evolved a multifaceted fear system, allowing threat detection to enable rapid adaptive responses crucial for survival. Although many cortical and subcortical brain areas are believed to be involved in the survival circuits detecting and responding to threat, the amygdala has reportedly a crucial role in the fear system. Here, we review evidence demonstrating that fearful faces, a specific category of salient stimuli indicating the presence of threat in the surrounding, are preferentially processed in the fear system and in the connected sensory cortices, even when they are presented outside of awareness or are irrelevant to the task. In the visual domain, we discuss evidence showing in hemianopic patients that fearful faces, via a subcortical colliculo-pulvinar-amygdala pathway, have a privileged visual processing even in the absence of awareness and facilitate responses towards visual stimuli in the intact visual field. Moreover, evidence showing that somatosensory cortices prioritise fearful-related signals, to the extent that tactile processing is enhanced in the presence of fearful faces, will be also reported. Finally, we will review evidence revealing that fearful faces have a pivotal role in modulating responses in peripersonal space, in line with the defensive functional definition of PPS.

Increased pSTS activity and decreased pSTS-mPFC connectivity when processing negative social interactions

We have previously shown that activity and connectivity within and between the action observation and mentalizing brain systems reflect the degree of positive dimensions expressed by social interactions such as cooperativity and affectivity, respectively. Here we aim to extend this evidence by investigating the neural bases of processing negative dimensions of observed interactions, such as competition and affective conflict, possibly representing a benchmark for different pathological conditions. In this fMRI study 34 healthy participants were shown pictures depicting interactions characterized by two crossed dimensions, i.e. positively- vs. negatively- connotated social intentions mainly expressed in terms of motor acts vs. mental states, i.e. cooperative, competitive, affective and conflicting interactions. We confirmed the involvement of the action observation and mentalizing networks in processing intentions mainly expressed through motor acts (cooperative/competitive) vs. mental states (affective/conflicting), respectively. Results highlighted the selective role of the left pSTS/TPJ in decoding social interactions, even when compared with parallel actions by non-interacting individuals. Its right-hemispheric homologue displayed stronger responses to negative than positive social intentions, regardless of their motor/mental status, and decreased connectivity with the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) when processing negative interactions. The resulting mPFC downregulation by negative social scenes might reflect an adaptive response to socio-affective threats, via decreased mentalizing when facing negative social stimuli. This evidence on the brain mechanisms underlying the decoding of real complex interactions represents a baseline for assessing both the neural correlates of impaired social cognition, and the effects of rehabilitative treatments, in neuro-psychiatric diseases or borderline conditions such as loneliness.

Fronto-temporal brain activity and connectivity track implicit attention to positive and negative social words in a novel socio-emotional Stroop task

Previous inconsistencies on the effects of implicitly processing positively - vs. negatively - connotated emotional words might reflect the influence of uncontrolled psycholinguistic dimensions, and/or social facets inherent in putative "emotional" stimuli. Based on the relevance of social features in semantic cognition, we developed a socio-emotional Stroop task to assess the influence of social vs. individual (non-social) emotional content, besides negative vs. positive valence, on implicit word processing. The effect of these variables was evaluated in terms of performance and RTs, alongside associated brain activity/connectivity. We matched conditions for several psycholinguistic variables, and assessed a modulation of brain activity/connectivity by trial-wise RT, to characterize the maximum of condition- and subject-specific variability. RTs were tracked by insular and anterior cingulate activations likely reflecting implicit attention to stimuli, interfering with task-performance based on condition-specific processing of their subjective salience. Slower performance for negative than neutral/positive words was tracked by left-hemispheric structures processing negative stimuli and emotions, such as fronto-insular cortex, while the lack of specific activations for positively-connotated words supported their marginal facilitatory effect. The speeding/slowing effects of processing positive/negative individual emotional stimuli were enhanced by social words, reflecting in specific activations of the right anterior temporal and orbitofrontal cortex, respectively. RTs to social positive and negative words modulated connectivity from these regions to fronto-striatal and sensorimotor structures, respectively, likely promoting approach vs. avoidance dispositions shaping their facilitatory vs. inhibitory effect. These results might help assessing the neural correlates of impaired social cognition and emotional regulation, and the effects of rehabilitative interventions.

Visual similarity and psychological closeness are neurally dissociable in the brain response to vicarious pain

Personal and vicarious experience of pain activate partially overlapping brain networks. This brain activity is further modulated by low- and high-order factors, e.g., the perceived intensity of the model's pain and the model's similarity with the onlooker, respectively. We investigated which specific aspect of similarity modulates such empathic reactivity, focusing on the potential differentiation between visual similarity and psychological closeness between the onlooker and different types of models. To this aim, we recorded fMRI data in neurotypical participants who observed painful and tactile stimuli delivered to an adult human hand, a baby human hand, a puppy dog paw, and an anthropomorphic robotic hand. The interaction between type of vicarious experience (pain, touch) and nature of model (adult, baby, dog, robot) showed that the right supramarginal gyrus (rSMG) was selectively active for visual similarity (more active during vicarious pain for the adult and baby models), while the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was more sensitive to psychological closeness (specifically linked to vicarious pain for the baby model). These findings indicate that visual similarity and psychological closeness between onlooker and model differentially affect the activity of brain regions specifically implied in encoding interindividual sharing of sensorimotor and affective aspects of vicarious pain, respectively.

Emotional Valence Modulates Low Beta Suppression and Recognition of Social Interactions

Abstract. Emotional valence may have evolutionary adaptive purposes as negative stimuli can be related to survival against threat and positive stimuli to facilitating relationships. This can be seen in the different impact positive and negative stimuli have on human health and well-being, and in the valence-specific cortical activity and neurophysiological patterns reported; for example, negative stimuli are processed more rapidly than positive. Valence-specific patterns are affected by individual differences and personality traits such as empathy, where levels of empathy relate to different reactivity patterns to valence. Here we investigated the effect of valence on neurophysiological responses and interpretation of social interactions depicted by point-light biological motion (PLBM) displays. The meaning of each PLBM display is revealed as the sequence unfolds and is therefore not readily available for snap assessments such as fight or flight responses. We compared electroencephalogram (EEG) reactivity during observation of the displays between individuals with low, moderate, or high levels of empathy. Results indicated that positive displays induced significantly larger suppression in lower beta (13–20 Hz) compared to control displays, while negative displays revealed no difference in suppression compared to scrambled versions. However, no difference between positive and negative displays was observed, suggesting that the rapid processing of negative displays may have been minimized by revealing meaning more slowly. Positive displays were interpreted more accurately, while levels of empathy did not modulate either neurophysiological responses or interpretation, suggesting that empathy under these conditions did not influence the way in which valence was processed or interpreted.

Neural effects of oxytocin and mimicry in frontotemporal dementia: A randomized crossover study

OBJECTIVE

To determine whether intranasal oxytocin, alone or in combination with instructed mimicry of facial expressions, would augment neural activity in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in brain regions associated with empathy, emotion processing, and the simulation network, as indexed by blood oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal during fMRI.

METHODS

In a placebo-controlled, randomized crossover design, 28 patients with FTD received 72 IU intranasal oxytocin or placebo and then completed an fMRI facial expression mimicry task.

RESULTS

Oxytocin alone and in combination with instructed mimicry increased activity in regions of the simulation network and in limbic regions associated with emotional expression processing.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings demonstrate latent capacity to augment neural activity in affected limbic and other frontal and temporal regions during social cognition in patients with FTD, and support the promise and need for further investigation of these interventions as therapeutics in FTD.

CLINICALTRIALSGOV IDENTIFIER

NCT01937013.

CLASSIFICATION OF EVIDENCE

This study provides Class III evidence that a single dose of 72 IU intranasal oxytocin augments BOLD signal in patients with FTD during viewing of emotional facial expressions.

DNA methylation differences in stress-related genes, functional connectivity and gray matter volume in depressed and healthy adolescents

BACKGROUND

Studies in adult depressed patients have indicated that altered DNA methylation patterns at genes related to serotonin and HPA axis functioning (e.g., SLC6A4, FKBP5) are associated with changes in frontolimbic functional connectivity and structure. Here, we examined whether these associations can be generalized to adolescents.

METHODS

25 adolescents with depression (Mean age = 15.72 ± 0.94 SD; 20 girls) and 20 healthy controls (Mean age = 16.05 ± 1.5 SD; 16 girls) underwent a functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging protocol, which included a resting-state assessment and measures of brain morphometry. DNA was obtained from saliva. Levels of SLC6A4 and FKBP5 methylation were determined using pyrosequencing.

RESULTS

SLC6A4 methylation was linked to amygdala-frontal operculum resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC), regardless of diagnosis, and was differentially associated with inferior orbitofrontal gyrus (IFOG) gray matter (GM) volume in adolescents with depression and controls. Replicating and extending previous findings in adults, FKBP5 methylation was associated with IFOG GM volume in depressed and healthy adolescents, as well as orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)-rostral prefrontal cortex (RPFC) connectivity in healthy adolescents only.

LIMITATIONS

Effects of medication use or genotype cannot be ruled out. Further, the relatively small sample size and predominately female sample may limit generalizability.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest that previously observed associations between SLC6A4 and FKBP5 methylation and frontolimbic processes in adult depressed patients can be in part generalized to adolescent patients. Further, findings suggest that measuring peripheral methylation at these genes deserves further attention as potential markers of typical and atypical development.

Expanding Simulation Models of Emotional Understanding: The Case for Different Modalities, Body-State Simulation Prominence, and Developmental Trajectories

Recent models of emotion recognition suggest that when people perceive an emotional expression, they partially activate the respective emotion in themselves, providing a basis for the recognition of that emotion. Much of the focus of these models and of their evidential basis has been on sensorimotor simulation as a basis for facial expression recognition - the idea, in short, that coming to know what another feels involves simulating in your brain the motor plans and associated sensory representations engaged by the other person's brain in producing the facial expression that you see. In this review article, we argue that simulation accounts of emotion recognition would benefit from three key extensions. First, that fuller consideration be given to simulation of bodily and vocal expressions, given that the body and voice are also important expressive channels for providing cues to another's emotional state. Second, that simulation of other aspects of the perceived emotional state, such as changes in the autonomic nervous system and viscera, might have a more prominent role in underpinning emotion recognition than is typically proposed. Sensorimotor simulation models tend to relegate such body-state simulation to a subsidiary role, despite the plausibility of body-state simulation being able to underpin emotion recognition in the absence of typical sensorimotor simulation. Third, that simulation models of emotion recognition be extended to address how embodied processes and emotion recognition abilities develop through the lifespan. It is not currently clear how this system of sensorimotor and body-state simulation develops and in particular how this affects the development of emotion recognition ability. We review recent findings from the emotional body recognition literature and integrate recent evidence regarding the development of mimicry and interoception to significantly expand simulation models of emotion recognition.

Predicting Empathy From Resting State Brain Connectivity: A Multivariate Approach

Recent task fMRI studies suggest that individual differences in trait empathy and empathic concern are mediated by patterns of connectivity between self-other resonance and top-down control networks that are stable across task demands. An untested implication of this hypothesis is that these stable patterns of connectivity should be visible even in the absence of empathy tasks. Using machine learning, we demonstrate that patterns of resting state fMRI connectivity (i.e. the degree of synchronous BOLD activity across multiple cortical areas in the absence of explicit task demands) of resonance and control networks predict trait empathic concern (n = 58). Empathic concern was also predicted by connectivity patterns within the somatomotor network. These findings further support the role of resonance-control network interactions and of somatomotor function in our vicariously driven concern for others. Furthermore, a practical implication of these results is that it is possible to assess empathic predispositions in individuals without needing to perform conventional empathy assessments.