The CEU Department of Cognitive Science and the Social Mind Center
cordially invites you to its talk by
Claus Lamm (Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit,
Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods,
University of Vienna)
Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 17:00-18:30
Host: Natalie Sebanz
Location: Department of Cognitive Science, CEU, Oktober 6 street 7,
room 101.
The neural mechanisms of empathy - from shared representations to
self-other distinction
“My talk aims to provide an overview of recent social neuroscience
research targeting the neural mechanisms of empathy. In the first part,
I will review evidence showing that empathy for pain recruits neural
networks overlapping with those underpinning the first-hand experience
of pain. While this has been interpreted to indicate that empathy relies
on "shared representations", similarity of neural activations alone is
insufficient to indicate equivalence of representations. To obtain more
conclusive evidence on whether empathy indeed recruits functionally
similar neural processes, we therefore performed a series of behavioral,
ERP, fMRI and psychopharmacological studies aiming to show that
experimentally reducing the first-hand experience of pain (by means of
placebo analgesia) equivalently reduces empathy for pain, and that this
is supported by similar neural networks and neurochemical mechanisms.
Our data indeed show that placebo analgesia reduces empathy for pain,
and that this is accompanied with matching ERP and fMRI activation
changes in the "shared" empathy for pain network identified previously.
Moreover, blocking placebo analgesia by means of an opioid antagonist
also blocks the effects of placebo analgesia on empathy. This provides
more direct and mechanistic evidence that empathy indeed relies on
functionally equivalent processes as first-hand emotion experiences,
supporting claims that empathy consists in some sort of "embodied
simulation" of the affective state of others. In the second part of my
talk, I will focus on another aspect that is crucial for the experience
of empathy, which is self-other distinction (S-O-D). I will present
results from a series of behavioral, fMRI, and TMS experiments showing
that the right supramarginal gyrus (an area adjacent but distinct to
what has classically been labeled as the “right temporo-parietal
junction”) is causally involved in self-other distinction and, more
specifically, in overcoming emotion egocentricity. I will then
demonstrate how the experience of acute psychosocial stress affects
self-other distinction, and report recent behavioral and fMRI findings
showing that a. there are profound gender differences in how stress
affects S-O-D, with females and males becoming less or more egocentric
under stress, respectively; b. that one mechanism for the higher
egocentricity in men seems to be that stress triggers a stronger
self-centered aversive response in them when witnessing the pain of
others, as indicated by fMRI."
We are looking forward to see you at the talk!
Cognitive Science Events at CEU:
http://cognitivescience.ceu.hu/events
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