EMPATHY

Sally-Anne experiments

TOM 

Where will sally look for her ball 

Kids under 3 will say Sally will look in the box - dont understand they have a different perspective than Sally 

Kids 4-5 start to say Sally will look in the basket (even though they saw anne move the ball, they understand Sally does not have this information)

Emotional Empathy

Objective: to understand the similarities and differences in brain activation between pain experience and pain empathy 

Subjects: 16 romantic couples 

Methods: female partners brain activity was assessed in an MRI when her right hand received a shock and when she saw her partners hand received shock

results: Insula is very important for pain empathy 

More activity in insula increased with higher empathy

Altruism

Objective: do extreme altruists have a better ability to empathize with others in distress by more closely mapping representations of themselves and others in the brain 

Subject: kidney donors and non-kidney donors 

Methods: 

• Watched as a stranger anticipated and experienced pressure-brain stimulation to right thumbnail 

• Watched the stranger anticipating and experiencing pain after being told to empathize with them 

• Subjects themselves anticipated the pressure-pain stimulation in their right thumbnail 

Measured brain activity

results: In response to anticipating of pain in themselves or observed in the stranger, altruists had more activity in the left insula

emotional empathy - psychopathy

Usually studied in relation to painful experiences

• In fmri scanners, subjects were shown images of different painful or neutral situations 

• Imagined how painful each would be for either themselves or someone else  

Men in prison asked imagine if this is happening to you and

results: Reduced emotional empathy activation is associated with increased psychopathy

When asked to imagine other perspective people with the high psychopathic traits had lower amygdala size

Psychopathy - reduced response to fearful faces

Boys with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits were assessed while viewing a fearful face and normal face and the boys were asked to give the persons gender (not asking them about fear) and then measured if there was activation when viewing fearful faces

Decreased amygdala activation to fearful facial expressions

psychopathy - fear conditioning

People with psychopathy typically show reduced physiological response to fear conditioning 

• Skin conductance

• Neural reactivity 

Men with traits and control and were shown faces with two mustaches and two not - and conditioned the painful shock with the main with a mustache and the non mustache with no shock

Non control when they saw the mustache photo they had an increased skin conductance (shot up) 

Control (psychopaths) when they saw the mustache photo they did not have an increase

hyper reactive NAcc

Hyper reactive dopamine reward system is associated with impulsivity and antisocial behavioral traits 

Used fmri and pet after administering amphetamine or placebo

results: Higher amphetamine induced dopamine release in NAcc associated with psychopathic traits

what is empathy

feeling what others feel (different sympathy)

development of empathy

less than 12 months old

what is altruism

• Voluntary , costly, non reciprocal behavior aimed at benefiting the well-being of another individual 

• Extreme altruists (heroic rescues, directed/non-directed organ or bone marrow donors, humanitarian aid workers, etc)

• High Honesty-Humility – relative value of outcomes for self vs others

• Low Personal Distress – tendencies to experience personal distress in an emergency

• Related to well-being

what is psychopathy

• Developmental disorder defined by affective deficits and antisocial behavior

• Highly comorbid with substance use disorders 

what are the affective deficits in factor 1 of psychopathy diagnosis

shallow emotions

lack of empathy

lack of remorse/guilt

what are the antisocial behaviors in factor 2 of psychopathy diagnosis

impulsivity

early behavioral problems

poor control of anger

pathological lying

what is the fast thalamic pathway in fear

fast, crude, immediate detection of danger and initiation of response 

(thalamus-amygdala)

cat with cucumber

what is the cortical pathway in fear

slower, more precise, reassessment of danger

(visual thalamus-visual cortex-amygdala)

what brain regions are involved in fear

Amygdala sends to all of these parts of the brain 

Striatum: integrated motor response; reward, goal-directed behavior 

Hypothalamus: defense reactions 

Hippocampal formation: context, memory

Orbitofrontal cortex: goal directed behavior

Temporal lobe: visual processing  

case study of the industrial psychopath

“As things stand, we do not know the prevalence of

psychopathy among those who work on Wall Street. It may be

even higher than 10%, on the assumption that psychopathic

entrepreneurs and risk-takers tend to gravitate toward

financial watering-holes, particularly those that are

enormously lucrative and poorly regulated...