title: Empathy or Ownership? Evidence from Corticospinal Excitability Modulation during Pain Observation.
abstract: Recent studies show that motor responses similar to those present in one's own pain (freezing effect) occur as a result of observation of pain in others. This finding has been interpreted as the physiological basis of empathy. Alternatively, it can represent the physiological counterpart of an embodiment phenomenon related to the sense of body ownership. We compared the empathy and the ownership hypotheses by manipulating the perspective of the observed hand model receiving pain so that it could be a first-person perspective, the one in which embodiment occurs, or a third-person perspective, the one in which we usually perceive the others. Motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) by TMS over M1 were recorded from first dorsal interosseous muscle, whereas participants observed video clips showing (a) a needle penetrating or (b) a Q-tip touching a hand model, presented either in first-person or in third-person perspective. We found that a pain-specific inhibition of MEP amplitude (a significantly greater MEP reduction in the "pain" compared with the "touch" conditions) only pertains to the first-person perspective, and it is related to the strength of the self-reported embodiment. We interpreted this corticospinal modulation according to an "affective" conception of body ownership, suggesting that the body I feel as my own is the body I care more about.
authors.affiliation: University of Turin, Italy.|Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France.
authors.forename: Giulia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bucchioni
authors.affiliation: University of Turin, Italy.
authors.forename: Carlotta
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fossataro
authors.affiliation: University of Turin, Italy.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cavallo
authors.affiliation: Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France.
authors.forename: Harold
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mouras
authors.affiliation: University of Turin, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Neppi-Modona
authors.affiliation: University of Turin, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Garbarini
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004576:Electromyography; D004645:Empathy / Q000502:physiology*; D019054:Evoked Potentials, Motor; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology; D058748:Pain Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D011712:Pyramidal Tracts / Q000502:physiology*; D012649:Self Concept; D057566:Self Report; D012938:Social Perception; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000502:physiology; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult