the neurological basis of empathy...

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alchemike
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the neurological basis of empathy...

Post by alchemike » 03-01-2004 09:44 PM

just feels nice...

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 54O7H1.DTL

Scientists discover how the brain feels others' pain
Empathy has neurological basis, they say

Friday, February 20, 2004
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer

When someone says, "I feel your pain," it isn't just an expression of
empathy, brain researchers say. It may be literally true.

The pain-sensing part of your brain switches on when you're aware that
someone else is in pain, according to research published in today's issue of
the journal Science. And the stronger you feel empathy for someone else's
pain, the fiercer the activity in the pain-sensing regions of your brain.

Empathy, the ability to grasp the feelings of others, is one of humanity's
most cherished traits. It's associated with the greatest humanitarians,
social activists and philanthropists, as well as the most insightful
novelists and artists.

Now, the new research points toward a neurological basis for empathy: our
brains' ability to mimic the "internal bodily states" of others inside the
neural jungle of our own noggins, said researcher Dr. Tania Singer of
University College London.

For more than two decades, scientists have used various types of devices to
scan brain activity while subjects are conducting certain tasks or thinking
certain types of thoughts. In recent years, functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) scanners have grown popular with researchers.

During any given human activity, one or more parts of the brain "light up"
on the fMRI screen. A luminous spot represents intense electrical firing of
nerve circuits, or unusually intense blood flow and oxygen consumption, at a
certain locale in the brain.

To explore the neurological secrets of empathy, the scientists at University
College London enlisted 16 male-female couples. The women were placed inside
an fMRI scanner.

Next, scientists applied painful stimulation -- electric shocks or heat --
to the women's right hands. Each woman faced a computer screen. Before each
painful stimulation, each woman's computer screen informed her when she was
about to be hurt and how intense the pain would be.

Later, the women's brains were scanned while they observed similar pains
being inflicted on their husbands.

Result: The fMRI scans showed that when women observed their mates'
suffering, the same parts of the women's brains illuminated as when they
expected, thanks to the computer alert, to be hurt themselves.

"The results suggest that we use emotional representations reflecting our
own subjective feeling states to understand the feelings of others," Singer
said in a statement.

"Probably, our ability to empathize has evolved from a system for
representing our own internal bodily states. ... Our human capacity to 'tune
in' to others when exposed to their feelings may explain why we do not
always behave selfishly in human interactions but instead engage in
altruistic, helping behavior," Singer added.

Also Thursday, the journal Neuron reported separate fMRI evidence of how our
brains distinguish between people who "play fair" and those who don't. The
research was also conducted by Singer, working with a partly different team.

Singer and her colleagues had volunteers play the game "prisoners' dilemma,"
which tests how well two hypothetical prisoners cooperate with each other.
In the game, under certain circumstances, it makes sense to cooperate; in
other instances, a cheater wins big.

By fMRI-scanning the volunteers, Singer and her team discovered that the
volunteers' brains illuminated in certain ways in response to players
perceived as fair and differently to those regarded as cheaters.

Such fMRI research is a new, unusually high-tech contribution to long-
standing debates over the possible biological roots of "moral" behaviors.
Since the 1970s, an intense scientific debate has concerned a phenomenon
related to empathy: "altruism," the human willingness to help others.

For decades, evolutionary biologists have argued over why humans and other
animals risk their lives to help others. According to the "selfish gene"
hypothesis, altruism make little sense -- at first glance, anyway -- because
the altruist risks sacrificing not only his life but his genes and, hence,
his genetic contribution to posterity or the gene pool.

But others have offered cunning arguments for why, under certain
circumstances, altruism makes more sense. For example, by one
interpretation, it makes genetic sense for an elderly male to rescue a
healthy young female relative -- one who is genetically close to him --
because her fertile years are still ahead of her, while he's less likely to
bear offspring.

E-mail Keay Davidson at [email protected]
black is white...

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