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Measurable Empathy: Predicting Sympathy for Brain MRI



Can a robot write a symphony? From a technical point of view, it can. But can he give her an emotional color? This issue is still open for discussion. However, one of the main distinguishing features of a person, in addition to a developed brain, upright posture, etc., is the presence of a wide range of emotions. This skill is not unique in nature, but in humans it is developed enough to distinguish it from other organisms that live on the planet. If we consider that a person is a social being, many emotions are somehow connected with the interaction of the individual with another individual or with society as a whole. One of these emotions is sympathy (or empathy).

But how to measure empathy, because this is an abstract concept? No matter how the lyric pointers, pointing in their works to the heart and soul as the source of all emotions, they are born by the brain. And the work of the brain can be analyzed. Scientists from the University of California (USA) conducted a study in which it was determined that the degree of empathy of a person can not only be determined using brain MRI at rest, but also to predict the results of the survey. What areas of the brain are involved in the formation of empathy, do they work individually or in conjugation, and how can this study help medicine? We learn about this from the report of scientists. Go.

Study basis


Empathy can be called one of the most altruistic emotions of a person, because it manifests itself in the form of a conscious empathy with the emotional state of another person (theoretically, you can add animals, and even robots, if they show emotions, of course).

From the point of view of evolution, there are several theories that explain empathy as such. Empathy is believed to be necessary to promote prosocial and cooperative behavior through caring for others and to predict the internal states, behavior, and intentions of surrounding individuals.

In other words, a person who is capable of empathy receives information about the state of another person through various stimuli (visual, sound, etc.) that lead to the activation of parts of the brain that form a response - empathy.

In order for empathy to work, our brain must respond to the emotions of the interlocutor in the same way that he responds to our own. Sometimes, when there is damage to the prefrontal cortex, unconscious reflexive imitation of behavior can occur (in this study, scientists call this case “resonance”).

From the point of view of neurology, the most likely foundation for this behavior is the so-called “neural resonance” - a phenomenon of collective neural representations for perception and feelings of disgust, somatosensation, emotions and motor behavior.

Naturally, additional factors affecting the degree of empathy and socialization are added to the neural resonance: personal attachment, social status, membership in a particular social group, and degree of trust. It is believed that an emotional reaction works on a top-down basis, when contextual information and conscious assessment are associated with affective, somatosensory and motor processes in behavior and in decision-making, which are regulated by the prefrontal and temporal lobes: temporal-parietal node (TPJ), dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).

These systems of monitoring the activity of neurons largely overlap with systems associated with the processes of conscious evaluation and logical forms of empathy or mentalization. Most likely, the control mechanism is inhibitory. This was confirmed by a study in which destructive neuromodulation of DMPFC and DLPFC caused a decrease in the inhibitory effect of these brain regions on prosocial behavior.

Scientists suggest that resonant and controlling processes occur in close conjugation, therefore it is extremely difficult to separate them inside the cognitive function. For example, it was revealed that somatomotor and affective information processing contribute to the assessment of the internal states, beliefs and intentions of other people.

In other words, individual parts of the brain, each responsible for its specific functions, work in a cluster to achieve an emotional response to the state of the interlocutor, in this case, the formation of empathy.

Therefore, the degree of empathy of each person depends on the stable, characteristic interactions between the resonant and control processes at the neural level. This hypothesis is confirmed by experiments in which certain parts of the brain were studied in an active state (in the process of performing certain tasks).

In this same study, scientists suggest that individual differences in the empathic function of a person can be determined by evaluating the functioning of the brain at rest. If this theory is confirmed, then there is no need to conduct any surveys, questionnaires and tests to determine the degree of empathic function (especially considering that these methods do not give an accurate result).

In addition, scientists decided to double-check whether there is a difference in brain function in terms of empathy between representatives of different ages and sex, because previous studies have yielded quite conflicting results.

The study involved 58 people aged 18 to 35 (30 women and 28 men). The main selection criteria for the subjects were: right-handed person, the absence of any previously recorded neurological and / or psychiatric disorders, the absence of developmental disorders, the absence of a history of drug or alcohol abuse.

At the end of each experiment, all participants completed questionnaires for the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). This questionnaire method has been used for a long time and has established itself as a tool for assessing the respondent’s cognitive and emotional state. The questionnaire consists of 25 statements that the participant evaluates on a five-point scale from 0 (does not describe me very well) to 5 (describes me very well).

Statements are designed to test four theoretical aspects of empathy:

  • Fantasy Scale (FS): the tendency to perceive fictional characters;
  • empathic attitude (Empathic Concern - EU): sympathetic reactions to the suffering of others;
  • Perspective Taking (PT): the tendency to take on another person’s perspective;
  • Personal Distress (PD): Unpleasant reactions to other people's distress.

Before the questionnaire, an MRI scan of the participants' brain was performed in a calm state. Particular attention was paid to certain areas of the brain (denoted as ROI - region of interest , that is, region of interest), the number of which was 185.


Table No. 1: areas of interest (ROI) during an MRI scan of the brain of the study participants.

Research results


Analysis of IRI scores was performed using analysis of variance (ANOVA). There were no special differences between men and women in the first three studied aspects: FS (F = 2.68, p = 0.108), EU (F = 2.59, p = 0.114) and PT (F = 0.274, p = 0.603). However, the degree of personal distress in women was significantly higher than in men (F = 9.79, p = 0.003).


Table 2: Comparison of IRI indicators for men and women.

As mentioned above, during MRI, special attention was paid to certain areas of the brain: visual, fronto-parietal, cingular-opercular, dorsal, ventral, as well as areas of resonance and control.


Image No. 1: designation of the position of the areas of interest of the resonant and control network.

When studying the ability to predict the strength of empathy from the activity of certain brain regions within a certain network, it was revealed that the somatomotor network significantly predicted the degree of empathic response of the test person (R = 0.374, p = 0.022).

Personal distress was predicted above the threshold using resonance (R = 0.236, p = 0.037), control (R = 0.22, p = 0.048) and singular-opercular networks (R = 0.242, p = 0.033). However, after adjusting the data for multiple comparisons within the FDR ( false discovery rate ), these results remain in doubt.


Image No. 2: assessment of the prediction of empathy for intranet activity.

The remaining aspects of empathy could not be predicted by the intranet activity of various ROIs. If the assessment of activity within the networks individually cannot successfully predict the degree of empathy of the subject, then it is probably necessary to consider the option of interconnectivity.

As expected, empathy was predicted when considering the relationship of the resonant and control networks (R = 0.221, p = 0.0475, adjusted FDR data). This fact fully confirms the basic theory of this study, which consists in the fact that the conjugate activity of certain parts of the human brain at rest is able to exhibit traits that characterize empathy. Therefore, MRI can successfully determine the strength of a person’s empathy without the need for additional questionnaires.


Image No. 3: assessment of the prediction of empathy for interconnectivity.

MRI studies have shown that individual networks continuously operate in conjunction with each other, showing manifestations of empathy. This is important because the test subjects were not assigned any specific tasks during the scan. Their brain was at rest, nevertheless, showed distinct signs of empathy, which they managed to fix.

For a more detailed acquaintance with the nuances of the study, I recommend that you look into the report of scientists .

Epilogue


With this study, scientists were able to successfully demonstrate a dynamic, integrated model of neural connections responsible for empathy. The main distinguishing feature of the experiments conducted in this study is that the subjects' brains were at rest. It is quite logical that the ability, for example, of a violinist to masterfully play the violin does not disappear when it is not in hand. However, regarding empathy in the scientific community, there were many disputes around its origin and the mechanism of formation. This work made it possible to understand that even if there is nothing in front of a person that should have caused him empathy and sympathy, certain neural networks of his brain continue to form empathy.

In addition to new data on empathy, scientists have received additional evidence that it is impossible to divide the work of the brain in an active and calm state, since there are many related processes between them that take place regardless of activity.

Researchers themselves see in their work not only theoretical, but also practical applications. For example, one can predict how well a specific patient will respond to a specific intervention, thereby allowing the creation of an optimal treatment option. In any case, the more we know about the brain, the better we understand ourselves.

Thank you for your attention, stay curious and have a great weekend everyone, guys! :)

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