title: Reduction of empathy for pain by placebo analgesia suggests functional equivalence of empathy and first-hand emotion experience.
abstract: Previous research in social neuroscience has consistently shown that empathy for pain recruits brain areas that are also activated during the first-hand experience of pain. This has been interpreted as evidence that empathy relies upon neural processes similar to those underpinning the first-hand experience of emotions. However, whether such overlapping neural activations imply that equivalent neural functions are engaged by empathy and direct emotion experiences remains to be demonstrated. We induced placebo analgesia, a phenomenon specifically modulating the first-hand experience of pain, to test whether this also reduces empathy for pain. Subjective and neural measures of pain and empathy for pain were collected using self-report and event-related potentials (ERPs) while participants underwent painful electrical stimulation or witnessed that another person was undergoing such stimulation. Self-report showed decreased empathy during placebo analgesia, and this was mirrored by reduced amplitudes of the pain-related P2, an ERP component indexing neural computations related to the affective-motivational component of pain. Moreover, these effects were specific for pain, as self-report and ERP measures of control conditions unrelated to pain were not affected by placebo analgesia. Together, the present results suggest that empathy seems to rely on neural processes that are (partially) functionally equivalent to those engaged by first-hand emotion experiences. Moreover, they imply that analgesics may have the unwanted side effect of reducing empathic resonance and concern for others.
authors.affiliation: Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, 1010 Vienna, Austria, and.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rütgen
authors.affiliation: Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, 1010 Vienna, Austria, and.
authors.forename: Eva-Maria
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Seidel
authors.affiliation: Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, 1010 Vienna, Austria, and Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Normal and Pathological Physiology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, 81371 Bratislava, Slovakia.
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Riečanský
authors.affiliation: Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, 1010 Vienna, Austria, and claus.lamm@univie.ac.at.
authors.forename: Claus
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5422-0653
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lamm
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003463:Cues; D004558:Electric Stimulation / Q000009:adverse effects; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D004645:Empathy / Q000502:physiology*; D005073:Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010146:Pain / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D059408:Pain Management; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods; D017288:Pain Threshold; D015990:Placebo Effect; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: ERP; P2; empathy; pain; placebo analgesia