title: Responsibility modulates pain-matrix activation elicited by the expressions of others in pain.
abstract: Here we examine whether brain responses to dynamic facial expressions of pain are influenced by our responsibility for the observed pain. Participants played a flanker task with a confederate. Whenever either erred, the confederate was seen to receive a noxious shock. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found that regions of the functionally localized pain-matrix of the participants (the anterior insula in particular) were activated most strongly when seeing the confederate receive a noxious shock when only the participant had erred (and hence had full responsibility). When both or only the confederate had erred (i.e. participant's shared or no responsibility), significantly weaker vicarious pain-matrix activations were measured.
authors: Social Brain Lab, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Sciences, 1105BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands; Institute of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
authors: Fang
authors: F
authors: Cui
authors: Social Brain Lab, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Sciences, 1105BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors: Abdel-Rahman
authors: AR
authors: Abdelgabar
authors: Social Brain Lab, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Sciences, 1105BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands; Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors: Christian
authors: C
authors: Keysers
authors: Social Brain Lab, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Sciences, 1105BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands; Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: v.gazzola@nin.knaw.nl.
authors: Valeria
authors: V
authors: Gazzola
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004645:Empathy / Q000502:physiology; D005149:Facial Expression; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D058748:Pain Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D012941:Social Responsibility; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Empathy; Pain; Responsibility; fMRI