Summary: Researchers have discovered how certain brain circuits process empathy, and show that witnessing others in pain activates the same neural pathways as they experience the same neural pathways directly. Using advanced imaging techniques, this study identified neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) that responded to both individual distress and observations of others’ distress.
Scientists have further demonstrated that signals from the ACC to the perimeter grey (PAG) region of the brain are important for converting empathy into behavioral responses such as freezing and avoidance. Manipulating this ACC-to-Pag route directly affected empathic behavior and confirmed its important role in translating observed pain into emotional responses.
These findings clarify the neural basis of empathy that can inform treatment of conditions including emotional or social processing disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, and PTSD.
Important Facts:
Shared nerve activation: Neurons in ACC are activated in the same way, whether they experience pain directly or observe another pain in pain. Identify the empathy circuit. The neural pathway from the ACC to the pug specifically processes emotional responses to observed distress.
Source: Institute of Basic Science
Empathy – The ability to share and understand the feelings of others is the basis of human social interaction.
When we witness someone in pain, we often experience a mirror emotional response. This ability is essential for social bonding and survival, but the exact neural mechanisms behind empathy remain largely unknown.
A research team led by Dr. Keum Sehoon, from the Centre for Cognitive and Social Studies (CCS) within the Institute for Basic Sciences (IBS), has revealed important insights into how the brain handles the pain of others.
Using miniature endoscopic calcium imaging, researchers identified specific neural ensembles in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) that encode empathic freeze, a behavioral response in which observers respond to fear when witnessing distress in others.
To investigate this phenomenon, the team conducted a series of real-time brain imaging experiments on mice, tracking individual neurons and observing another mouse experiencing mild foot shock.
The results showed that, both when observers firsthand experience pain and when they witness another sighting of pain, certain ACC neurons are activated and reinforce the idea that observing pain causes neural responses similar to the experience of direct pain.
The study further revealed that empathetic frozen ACC group activity is closely similar to the experience of pain directly with emotional neural expression rather than sensation.
This suggests that witnessing the pain of others causes the ACC activation as if the observer was experiencing the pain themselves, highlighting the special role of ACC in handling the emotional aspects of pain.
Further analysis revealed that ACC neurons projected onto the peri-brain gray (PAG), a brain region involved in regulating fear and pain, selectively conveyed emotional pain information. The researchers used optogenetics. This was manipulated this pathway in a technique that allowed for accurate control of neural activity through light.
When they blocked the ACC-to-pug circuit, empathetic freezes and pain-avoiding behaviors were significantly reduced. This confirms that this pathway translates perceived distress into behavioral responses and reinforces its important role in emotional empathy.
Unlike previous studies focusing on animals with previous experiences of pain, this study used naive observer mice that were not exposed to pain, allowing researchers to examine pure emotional contagion without the influence of past experiences. This approach provides new insights into the fundamental neural mechanisms of emotional empathy.
Understanding how the brain codes empathy can have a major impact on mental health research. Conditions such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), antisocial personality disorder, PTSD, and schizophrenia often have difficulty dealing with social and emotional cues.
By identifying specific brain circuits involved in emotional sharing, scientists can develop new strategies to treat these disorders.
Dr. Keum said: “Our findings provide the basis for new approaches to identify specific brain circuits involved in emotionally processing the pain of others and studying empathy-related neuropsychiatric disorders.”
About this empathy and neuroscience research news
Author: William Sue
Source: Institute of Basic Science
Contact: William Suh – Institute of Basic Science
Image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Open access.
Keum Sehoon et al. Natural Communication
Abstract
Cortical representation of empathic fear in the shape of emotional pain in male mice
The ability to influence sharing and to speak out for others’ emotions constitutes a key component of empathy. However, the neural basis for encoding the pain of others and representing shared emotional experiences is less understood.
Here, miniature endoscopic calcium imaging is used to identify a clear and dynamic neural ensemble of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) that encodes observational fear in both excitatory and inhibitory neurons in male mice.
In particular, we find that population dynamics encoding subrombolyze information are conserved in ACC pyramidal neurons and are specifically expressed by emotional responses rather than sensations to direct pain experiences.
Furthermore, using circuit-specific imaging and optogenetic manipulation, we demonstrate that a distinct population of ACC neurons projecting onto the surrounding grey (PAG) is not in the mandibular amygdala (BLA), selectively transmitting emotional pain information and modulating observational fear.
Taken together, our findings highlight the important role of ACC neural representations in shaping empathic freezes through emotional pain encoding.
