Empathy: enables sharing of emotion, pain, and sensation of others.

Perception-action model of empathy› Observing or imagining another person in a particular

emotional state activates a representation of that state in the observer.

› Common activation for experiencing a feeling (i.e. pain) and perceiving the same feeling in someone else.

Empathy for Pain shows activation in:› Anterior Insula (AI) and Fronto-insular Cortex (FI)› Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)

Hypothesis 1: Pain-related empathic responses in A1/F1 and ACC will be elicited when observing a fair person in pain, but will be reduced or absent when observing an unfair person in pain.

Hypothesis 2: Increase in activation in brain areas known to be important in reward processing due to satisfaction from punishing unfair players.› Ventral Striatum, Nucleus Accumbens, and Orbito-Frontal

Cortex

Subjects: 16 men and 16 women

Scanner: 1.5 T Siemens Sonata MRI scanner

Economic game model: Prisoner’s Dilemma game - used to induce liking or disliking of actors by subjects.

Male/female subjects rated fair players significantly

more fair, agreeable, likeable, and attractive.

Subject plays PDG – induce liking/disliking Pain administered by stimulation through

electrodes to the dorsum of the right hand of all three participants

fMRI -measure brain responses when individuals empathized with pain of someone they liked or disliked.

Rate: stimulation intensity, liking of both actors, and desire for revenge.

Self-felt pain: increase in A1 and ACC activity.

Unfamiliar, but likeable person in pain: significant activation in A1 extending into F1 (both genders) and ACC

(women)

Unfair vs. fair player in pain

Women: • no significant difference in empathy-related pain activation• Significant activation in bilateral A1/F1 and ACC in all three conditions

Men: significant increase in F1 activation for fair player and no increase in F1 activation for unfair players.

Reward processing areas (ventral striatum, nucleus accumbens, and left orbito-frontal cortex) show increase activity in men only.

Men express stronger desire for revenge› Greater activation in

nucleus accumbens

Selfish (unfair) behavior abolishes empathic responses in the brain.

People (men) value gains of others positively only if they are perceived to act fairly.

Humans derive satisfaction from seeing ‘justice’ administered, even if punishment is out of their control.

Strengths

fMRI scanner

Color-coded fMRI images for men/women

Limitations

Experimental design favored men –

punishment related to

physical threat.

Conduct experiment with punishment more relevant

to women – ex:

psychological threat.