Neural correlates of empathy with pain show habituation effects. An fMRI study.

Background: Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that the actual experience of pain and the perception of another person in pain share common neural substrates, including the bilateral anterior insular cortex and the anterior midcingulate cortex. As many fMRI studies include the exposure of participants to repeated, similar stimuli, we examined whether empathic neural responses were affected by habituation and whether the participants' prior pain experience influenced these habituation effects. Method: In 128 trials (four runs), 62 participants (31 women, 23.0 ± 4.2 years) were shown pictures of hands exposed to painful pressure (pain pictures) and unexposed (neutral pictures). After each trial, the participants rated the pain of the model. Prior to the experiment, participants were either exposed to the same pain stimulus (pain exposure group) or not (touch exposure group). In order to assess possible habituation effects, linear changes in the strength of the BOLD response to the pain pictures (relative to the neutral pictures) and in the ratings of the modelʼs pain were evaluated across the four runs. Results: Although the ratings of the modelʼs pain remained constant over time, we found neural habituation in the bilateral anterior/midinsular cortex, the posterior midcingulate extending to dorsal posterior cingulate cortex, the supplementary motor area, the cerebellum, the right inferior parietal lobule, and the left superior frontal gyrus, stretching to the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex. The participantʼs prior pain experience did neither affect their ratings of the modelʼs pain nor their maintenance of BOLD activity in areas associated with empathy. Interestingly, participants with high trait personal distress and fantasy tended to show less habituation in the anterior insula. Conclusion: Neural structures showed a decrease of the BOLD signal, indicating habituation over the course of 45 minutes. This can be interpreted as a neuronal mechanism responding to the repeated exposure to pain depictions, which may be regarded as functional in a range of contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Accession Number: 2015-40311-001. Partial author list: First Author & Affiliation: Preis, Mira A.; Georg-August University of Goettingen, Georg-Elias-Mueller Institute of Psychology, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Goettingen, Germany. Release Date: 20151005. Publication Type: Journal (0100), Peer Reviewed Journal (0110). Format Covered: Electronic. Document Type: Journal Article. Language: English. Major Descriptor: Cingulate Cortex; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Insula. Minor Descriptor: Empathy. Classification: Neuropsychology & Neurology (2520). Population: Human (10); Male (30); Female (40). Location: Germany. Age Group: Adulthood (18 yrs & older) (300); Young Adulthood (18-29 yrs) (320); Thirties (30-39 yrs) (340). Tests & Measures: Interpersonal Reactivity Index-German Version; Saarbruecker Personality Questionnaire; Fantasy Scale. Methodology: Brain Imaging; Empirical Study; Quantitative Study. References Available: Y. ArtID: e0137056. Issue Publication Date: Aug 28, 2015. Publication History: First Posted Date: Aug 28, 2015; Accepted Date: Aug 13, 2015; First Submitted Date: May 19, 2014. Copyright Statement: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Preis et al. 2015.