Understanding others: empathy/mentalization

Question 1

Hamilton (2006) says actions are encoded in the brain as outcomes that serve goals. What early result using infants hinted at this?

Answer 1

Babies habituate (look away) when a stimulus loses its novelty. When watching reaching behaviour by adult, they habituate to new directions of reaching, but NOT to reaching to a different object, because this last one signifies a novel goal of the adult. (e.g. take a hammer to hit a nail instead of take an apple to eat)

Question 2

How did Hamilton test the hypothesis that actions are encoded as goals using fmri?

Answer 2

• adults watching movies of reaching movements (2x2 new object(goal)/new direction) trials)
• prediction: brain regions encoding immediate goals would respond more to novel goals compared to repeated goals and unresponsive to direction

Question 3

What did Hamilton find in his study testing action encoding as goals?

Answer 3

Intraparietal sulcus was more active for novel goals.
Other studies implicated it in: observation hand actions, action planning and execution. Lesions impair: action interpretation, ability to reach towards new goal.

Question 4

What implications does the encoding of actions in terms of goals have for the human ability to understand each others actions?

Answer 4

If you observe an action of someone else, and it activates brain regions encoding motor goals, this may help the person understand what action is being performed and how, and to predict and coordinate motor actions together.

Question 5

How is empathy different from theory of mind, sympathy, or contagion?

Answer 5

ToM, sympathy: dont involve the sharing of the emotional state
Contagion: in that case, the source is unknown, whereas in empathy, the person knows which part is other and which part is self.

Question 6

What is Preston & De Waal’s perception-action model of empathy? / Direct matching / simulation model / Bastiaansen’s embodied simulation

Answer 6

extrapolated result MNS motor actions toemotions: when viewing another person’s expressive behaviour, (via facial mimicry) the regions that encode the underlying emotion are activated and by this facilitate sharing and/or understanding of the affective state (empathy)

Question 7

What is the Mirror Neuron System in humans?

Answer 7

• areas with small percentage neurons responding to obs + exe movements
• vPremotor, IFG, intraparietal sulcus, inferior parietal lobule, somatosensory
• viewing action facilitates doing, but TMS to MNS makes this disappear.
• plays a role in imitation (some ppl cant inhibit imititating seen actions)

Question 8

What are some of the early results that have been taken as evidence for the role of MNS in empathy?

Answer 8

• people who observe facial expressions of others unconcsiously mimic these (EMG)
• IFG/vmpfc activated by perceiving and expressing emotional expressions

Question 9

What is evidence against the role of MNS in empathy?

Answer 9

• ppl with paralysed faces still recognize and understand emotional expressions in others, and can still feel emotion themselves
• people who cant feel pain show MNS activity
• empathy and perspective taking implicated in (OFC, MPFC) other regions than typical MNS

Question 10

What are some methodological limitations often seen in simulation/MSN research?

Answer 10

• correlations of same activation during observation and execution are between voxels (fmri), not neurons(single cell recordings)
• mirror neurons only take up a small part within a given region
• regions activated in both observation as execution are often part of different networks

Question 11

What are results supporting a role of non-MNS regions in the simulation of emotions: disgust? (Bastiaansen)

Answer 11

• Frontal opercular taste cortex (IFO) near AI activated both during experience and observation of disgust
• If this area is lesioned, impairments in feeling as well recognizing disgust

Question 12

What are the method + results supporting a role of non-MNS regions in the simulation of pain? (Jackson, 2005)

Answer 12

method: pictures hands/feet in painful situations (block design) vs no pain images

ACC + AI responds both to painful stimuli as well as perceiving others in pain, ACC correlated with rating “how much pain would person feel”

Question 13

Is there evidence for the hypothesis that emotions are shared in observers via the route of facial mimicry of emotional expressions?

Answer 13

• no link degree mimicry and accuracy emotional recognition
• people with facial paralysis show no deficit in emotion recognition
• no functional connectivity between insula and primary sensorimotor regions like you would expect if mimicry is related (bc to mimic, primary motor regions need to be active)

Question 14

What network has been consistently linked with empathy (Fan meta analysis), and to what aspect of empathy are these regions related?

Answer 14

affective (automatic, without instruction, through observation, arousal): AI
cognitive (instruction to attend to feelings target, imagining or evaluating, perspective taking): mid cingulate

dACC, SMA
but not MSN (IFG/inferior parietal lobule)

Question 15

What was the method of Musten (2011) study into exclusion?

Answer 15

1. watching cyberball game in which someone else is excluded
   vs blocks in which the pp was still included
2. measure prosocial behaviour by rating empathy in emails the pps later sent to excluded person

Question 16

What were the results of Musten study into exclusion?

Answer 16

• mentalizing areas were more active during exclusion, DMPFC, MPFC, precuneus but NOT affective areas
• trait empathy correlated with both mentalizing as well as affective areas (dACC, AI) activity during exclusion
• trait empathy -> prosocial bhvr link mediated by MPFC activity

Question 17

What were the conclusions of Musten exclusion study about the potential similarity between social pain and physical pain?

Answer 17

• social pain doesnt activate affective regions as easily (only for high empathizers, as it requires extra layer of mentalization)
• empaths with high MPFC activity may perceive others as more similar to self motivating prosocial bhvr

Question 18

What was the method of a study on empathy in psychopaths?

Answer 18

• incarcated psychopaths vs nonpsychopaths did the same kind of picture task of pain-no pain, with imagine self and imagine other blocks

Question 19

What were the results of a study on empathy in psychopaths?

Answer 19

• during imagine-self, psychopaths had activation in pain processing areas like AI and empathy regions like MCC, SMA, and motor resonance regions like IFG, .
• psychopathy correlated negatively with AMY during other
• psychopathy correlated positively with vstriatum during other

Question 20

How did they interpret the results of the psychopathy study regarding their ability to emphatize?

Answer 20

• psychopaths do not have a deficient affective perspective taking per se, as they cán imagine themselves in the situation, but not the other
• application: instruct psychopaths to imagine how they would feel if someone would hurt them.
• lack of AMY consistent with theory that psychopaths do not respond to distressing stimuli

Question 21

What do the results of the psychopath study teach us about the role of the MNS in empathy?

Answer 21

It supports the idea that sensorimotor resonance is not a vital part of empathy, as they were able to have MSN activation during imagine self trials

Question 22

Name an example of a hyperscanning study giving insight into the nature of cooperation/coordinating actions with other people by mentalizing

Answer 22

1. Pps instructed to either compete or cooperate with the timing of their button presses showed more brain sync during coop vs comp
2. Pp A does gesture that Pp B has to guess. MNS activity in A Granger caused MNS + vmpfc activity in B -> msn and mentalizing areas may work together