title: Sex-dependent effects of stress on brain correlates to empathy for pain.
abstract: Empathy is a fundamental attribute required for appropriate social functioning. The extent to which we empathize with others in pain is influenced by numerous factors. Being highly social species, humans face social stress on a regular basis, which undoubtedly affects how we react to our environment. It is not yet known how social stress may modulate our neural mechanisms when we empathize with others in painful circumstances, and its effects on empathic behavior are still unclear. For this reason, we recorded the electroencephalography (EEG) of healthy men and women, half of which were previously exposed to psychosocial stress, while they observed photographs of hands in painful and neutral situations. At the behavioral level, stress induced higher unpleasantness ratings to painful stimuli, and lower ratings to neutral pictures, independent of sex. At the neurophysiological level, we found that early (N110 over fronto-central sites) event-related potentials (ERPs) were not affected by stress, while late (P3 over centro-parietal regions) components showed a sex-dependent differential effect of stress. Correlation analyses further indicated a strong association between N110 with trait markers of empathy in all participants, while P3 was associated with the change in cortisol in stressed males. Our findings suggest that sex-dependent effects of social stress on the neural responses to empathy for pain give rise to comparable behaviors in men and women in the paradigm we employed, implying that each sex may engage in distinct mechanisms to cope with stress. Moreover, stress seems to modulate late neural mechanisms of empathy but not our early perception.
authors.affiliation: LWL University Hospital Bochum, Division of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry and Psychiatric Preventive Medicine, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany; International Graduate School of Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Electronic address: cgliencres@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gonzalez-Liencres
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Anja
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Breidenstein
authors.affiliation: International Graduate School of Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany; Department of Cognitive Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Oliver T
authors.initials: OT
authors.lastname: Wolf
authors.affiliation: LWL University Hospital Bochum, Division of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry and Psychiatric Preventive Medicine, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany; International Graduate School of Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brüne
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D019540:Area Under Curve; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004645:Empathy; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000378:metabolism; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010146:Pain / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012463:Saliva / Q000737:chemistry; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D006854:Hydrocortisone
keywords: Contextual factors; ERP; Empathy; Pain; Social cognition; Stress