@article{TEXTUAL,
      recid = {10669},
      author = {Lamm, Claus and Nusbaum, Howard C. and Meltzoff, Andrew N.  and Decety, Jean},
      title = {What Are You Feeling? Using Functional Magnetic Resonance  Imaging to Assess the Modulation of Sensory and Affective  Responses during Empathy for Pain},
      journal = {PLOS ONE},
      address = {2007-12-12},
      number = {TEXTUAL},
      abstract = {&lt;p&gt;Background: Recent neuroscientific evidence suggests  that empathy for pain activates similar neural  representations as the first-hand experience of pain.  However, empathy is not an all-or-none phenomenon but it is  strongly malleable by interpersonal, intrapersonal and  situational factors. This study investigated how two  different top-down mechanisms – attention and cognitive  appraisal - affect the perception of pain in others and its  neural underpinnings.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Methodology/Principal Findings:  We performed one behavioral (N = 23) and two functional  magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments (N = 18). In  the first fMRI experiment, participants watched photographs  displaying painful needle injections, and were asked to  evaluate either the sensory or the affective consequences  of these injections. The role of cognitive appraisal was  examined in a second fMRI experiment in which participants  watched injections that only appeared to be painful as they  were performed on an anesthetized hand. Perceiving pain in  others activated the affective-motivational and  sensory-discriminative aspects of the pain matrix. Activity  in the somatosensory areas was specifically enhanced when  participants evaluated the sensory consequences of pain.  Perceiving non-painful injections into the anesthetized  hand also led to signal increase in large parts of the pain  matrix, suggesting an automatic affective response to the  putatively harmful stimulus. This automatic response was  modulated by areas involved in self/other distinction and  valence attribution – including the temporo-parietal  junction and medial orbitofrontal  cortex.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Conclusions/Significance: Our findings  elucidate how top-down control mechanisms and automatic  bottom-up processes interact to generate and modulate  other-oriented responses. They stress the role of cognitive  processing in empathy, and shed light on how emotional and  bodily awareness enable us to evaluate the sensory and  affective states of others.&lt;/p&gt;},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/10669},
}