The empathic brain: how, when and why?

TLDR: This work proposes two major roles for empathy; its epistemological role is to provide information about the future actions of other people, and important environmental properties, and proposes a contextual approach, suggesting several modulatory factors that might influence empathic brain responses.

About: This article is published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.The article was published on 2006-10-01 and is currently open access. It has received 1404 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Empathy & Simulation theory of empathy.

Figures

Figure 1. Shared brain networks, as revealed in fMRI studies on empathy for disgust, disgusting odors (red) and the sight of someone else smelling disgusting odors [2]. (b) videos showing a leg being touched (blue) [3]. (c–g) Overlapping brain activity in the AI with another person feeling pain (red), whereby (c) shows the activation of women involvement of the same network when women (right) or men (left) observe an unkno brain responses of subjects viewing still images of potentially painful situations [50], fa details regarding methods and analysis of these studies, see papers cited.

Figure 2. Schematic representation of the early and late appraisal model of empathy.

Table 1. Modulatory factors of empathy

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What have the authors contributed in "The empathic brain: how, when and why?" ?

In this paper, the authors proposed several factors that might modulate when and to what extent the authors feel empathy and provided preliminary answers to the question concerning why empathy might have evolved. 

Q2. What are the main factors that influence the intensity of the empathic response?

The intensity, saliency and valence (positive versus negative) of the emotion displayed by the target might have a great influence on the intensity of the empathizer’s empathic response. 

Q3. What is the way to modulate the empathic response?

This modulation can either be achieved by top-down inhibitory or excitatory processes or by horizontal competition between different motivational processes. 

Q4. What is the effect of empathy on the emotional bond between people?

perceiving another person’s empathy for oneself is likely to increase affiliation and strengthen the emotional bond with that person.