Empathy for pain motivates actions without altruistic effects: evidence of motor dynamics and brain activity.
Empathy has been supposed to be a proximate mechanism of altruistic behavior. We investigated whether empathy for pain drives actions without altruistic effects and how such actions modulate neural responses to others' pain. In two experiments, we asked healthy adults to press a button for no reason when viewing video clips showing faces with pain expressions receiving needle penetration or faces with neutral expressions receiving a cotton swab touch. Experiment 1 found that participants pressed a button with greater response force when watching painful than non-painful stimuli. Participants who reported greater unpleasant feelings pressed the button harder when viewing painful stimuli. Experiment 2 revealed that passively viewing painful vs non-painful stimuli increased blood-oxygen-level-dependent signals in the middle cingulate cortex, supplementary motor cortex, and bilateral second somatosensory and inferior frontal cortex, which, however, were reduced by the action of button press without altruistic effects. In addition, individuals who reported higher personal distress illustrated greater decrease of the second somatosensory activity induced by button press. Our results indicate that empathy for pain motivates simple actions without altruistic effects that in turn reduce neural responses to others' pain, suggesting a functional role of action execution in self distress relief when viewing others' suffering.
School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Xiaochun
X
Han
Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Kang
K
He
Department of Radiology, Beijing Military General Hospital, Beijing, China.
Bing
B
Wu
School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Zhenhao
Z
Shi
School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Yi
Y
Liu
School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Siyang
S
Luo
School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Kunlin
K
Wei
Department of Radiology, Beijing Military General Hospital, Beijing, China.
Xinhuai
X
Wu
School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Shihui
S
Han
D000328:Adult; D000533:Altruism; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004645:Empathy / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000502:physiology
D010100:Oxygen
altruistic behavior; cingulate; empathy; fMRI; somatosensory cortex