Brain pathways of pain empathy activated by pained facial expressions: a meta-analysis of fMRI using the activation likelihood estimation method

The power of pain: The temporal-spatial dynamics of empathy induced by body gestures and facial expressions

Two non-verbal pain representations, body gestures and facial expressions, can communicate pain to others and elicit our own empathic responses. However, the specific impact of these representations on neural responses of empathy, particularly in terms of temporal and spatial neural mechanisms, remains unclear. To address this issue, the present study developed a kinetic pain empathy paradigm comprising short animated videos depicting a protagonist's "real life" pain and no-pain experiences through body gestures and facial expressions. Electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings were conducted on 52 neurotypical adults; while they viewed the animations. Results from multivariate pattern, event-related potential, event-related spectrum perturbation, and source localization analyses revealed that pain expressed through facial expressions, but not body gestures, elicited increased N200 and P200 responses and activated various brain regions, i.e., the anterior cingulate cortex, insula, thalamus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, temporal gyrus, cerebellum, and right supramarginal gyrus. Enhanced theta power with distinct spatial distributions were observed during early affective arousal and late cognitive reappraisal stages of the pain event. Multiple regression analyses showed a negative correlation between the N200 amplitude and pain catastrophizing, and a positive correlation between the P200 amplitude and autism traits. These findings demonstrate the temporal evolution of empathy evoked by dynamic pain display, highlighting the significant impact of facial expression and its association with individuals' unique psychological traits.

The neuroscience of compassion: a scoping review of the literature on the neuroscience of compassion and compassion-related therapies

OBJECTIVES

Compassion is the emotion that motivates people to relieve the physical, emotional, or mental pains of others. Engaging in compassionate behaviour has been found to enhance psychological wellness and resilience. However, constant displays of compassionate behaviour can lead to burnout particularly for healthcare workers who inherently practise compassion day to day. This burnout can be relieved by Compassion focused meditation. The aim of this review is to identify neuroplastic changes in the brain associated with meditation, with a focus on compassion and compassion related meditation.

METHODS

Based on PRISMA guidelines, we conducted a scoping review of studies which described neuroplastic effects of meditation, focusing on compassion-based training. Studies were excluded if they (i) included multiple meditation practices or (ii) included participant populations with psychiatric/neuropsychiatric history (except anxiety or depression) or (iii) included exclusively ageing populations.

RESULTS

The results of the reviewed studies showed various neurological changes in regions of the brain as a result of compassion based training. These regions include amygdala, the anterior insula, medial prefrontal cortex, medial orbitofrontal cortex and structures within the dopamine system.

CONCLUSION

This review highlights that compassion-based training could lead to neuroplastic changes which interconnect to enhance overall well-being, resilience and compassionate care among health-care professionals. However, further work is required to establish conclusive evidence of its sustained benefit and cost-effectiveness, as well as its utility in a healthcare setting.

How do the activity patterns of people with chronic pain influence the empathic response of future health professionals: an experimental study

Empathy in healthcare professionals is associated with better treatment outcomes and higher satisfaction among patients with chronic pain. Activity patterns play an essential role in the adjustment of these patients and, as a pain behaviour, may have a communicative function and elicit distinct empathic responses. This study investigated whether the activity pattern profiles characteristic of these patients had differential effects on the empathic response (empathic distress and compassion/sympathy) of future healthcare professionals. Healthcare professionals should improve their knowledge about the role of different activity patterns in the well-being of people with chronic pain and receive specific training in empathic skills. We controlled for several variables that could affect the empathic response (sex, age, academic degree, previous experience of chronic pain, and dispositional empathy).A total of 228 undergraduates performed an experimental task using vignettes depicting four activity pattern profiles displayed by people with chronic pain and completed questionnaires measuring dispositional and situational empathy. We conducted a MANCOVA analysis.Undergraduates showed more compassion/sympathy toward the medium cycler profile than toward the doer profile. Participants' age was associated with empathic distress. Sex, academic degree, and previous experiences with chronic pain were not associated with their empathic response to the vignettes. Dispositional perspective-taking and empathic concern were significantly associated with compassion/sympathy responses, and personal distress was significantly associated with empathic distress.Activity pattern profiles may have a communicative function and elicit different empathic responses toward people with chronic pain. Individual differences in dispositional empathy play an important role on situational empathic responses.

Psycho-Neuroendocrinology in the Rehabilitation Field: Focus on the Complex Interplay between Stress and Pain

Chronic stress and chronic pain share neuro-anatomical, endocrinological, and biological features. However, stress prepares the body for challenging situations or mitigates tissue damage, while pain is an unpleasant sensation due to nociceptive receptor stimulation. When pain is chronic, it might lead to an allostatic overload in the body and brain due to the chronic dysregulation of the physiological systems that are normally involved in adapting to environmental challenges. Managing stress and chronic pain (CP) in neurorehabilitation presents a significant challenge for healthcare professionals and researchers, as there is no definitive and effective solution for these issues. Patients suffering from neurological disorders often complain of CP, which significantly reduces their quality of life. The aim of this narrative review is to examine the correlation between stress and pain and their potential negative impact on the rehabilitation process. Moreover, we described the most relevant interventions used to manage stress and pain in the neurological population. In conclusion, this review sheds light on the connection between chronic stress and chronic pain and their impact on the neurorehabilitation pathway. Our results emphasize the need for tailored rehabilitation protocols to effectively manage pain, improve treatment adherence, and ensure comprehensive patient care.

Empathy Modulates the Activity of the Sensorimotor Mirror Neuron System during Pain Observation

AIM

The aim of this study is to analyze the brain activity patterns during the observation of painful expressions and to establish the relationship between this activity and the scores obtained on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI).

METHODS

The study included twenty healthy, right-handed subjects (10 women). We conducted a task-based and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. The task involved observing pictures displaying painful expressions. We performed a region of interest (ROI) analysis focusing on the core regions of the sensorimotor mirror neuron system (MNS). Resting-state fMRI was utilized to assess the functional connectivity of the sensorimotor MNS regions with the rest of the cortex using a seed-to-voxel approach. Additionally, we conducted a regression analysis to examine the relationship between brain activity and scores from the IRI subtests.

RESULTS

Observing painful expressions led to increased activity in specific regions of the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes. The largest cluster of activation was observed in the left inferior parietal lobule (IPL). However, the ROI analysis did not reveal any significant activity in the remaining core regions of the sensorimotor MNS. The regression analysis demonstrated a positive correlation between brain activity during the observation of pain and the "empathic concern" subtest scores of the IRI in both the cingulate gyri and bilateral IPL. Finally, we identified a positive relationship between the "empathic concern" subtest of the IRI and the functional connectivity (FC) of bilateral IPLs with the bilateral prefrontal cortex and the right IFG.

CONCLUSION

Observing expressions of pain triggers activation in the sensorimotor MNS, and this activation is influenced by the individual's level of empathy.

Social perception in deaf individuals: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies

Deaf individuals may report difficulties in social interactions. However, whether these difficulties depend on deafness affecting social brain circuits is controversial. Here, we report the first meta-analysis comparing brain activations of hearing and (prelingually) deaf individuals during social perception. Our findings showed that deafness does not impact on the functional mechanisms supporting social perception. Indeed, both deaf and hearing control participants recruited regions of the action observation network during performance of different social tasks employing visual stimuli, and including biological motion perception, face identification, action observation, viewing, identification and memory for signs and lip reading. Moreover, we found increased recruitment of the superior-middle temporal cortex in deaf individuals compared with hearing participants, suggesting a preserved and augmented function during social communication based on signs and lip movements. Overall, our meta-analysis suggests that social difficulties experienced by deaf individuals are unlikely to be associated with brain alterations but may rather depend on non-supportive environments.

Relational vs representational social cognitive processing: a coordinate-based meta-analysis of neuroimaging data

The neurocognitive bases of social cognition have been framed in terms of representing others' actions through the mirror system and their mental states via the mentalizing network. Alongside representing another person's actions or mental states, however, social cognitive processing is also shaped by their (mis)match with one's own corresponding states. Here, we addressed the distinction between representing others' states through the action observation or mentalizing networks (i.e. representational processing) and detecting the extent to which such states align with one's own ones (i.e. relational processing, mediated by social conflict). We took a meta-analytic approach to unveil the neural bases of both relational and representational processing by focusing on previously reported brain activations from functional magnetic resonance imaging studies using false-belief and action observation tasks. Our findings suggest that relational processing for belief and action states involves, respectively, the left and right temporo-parietal junction, likely contributing to self-other differentiation. Moreover, distinct sectors of the posterior fronto-medial cortex support social conflict processing for belief and action, possibly through the inhibition of conflictual representations. These data might pave the way for further studies addressing social conflict as an important component of normal and pathological processing, and inform the design of rehabilitative treatments for social deficits.

Effective connectivity reveals distinctive patterns in response to others' genuine affective experience of disgust

Empathy is significantly influenced by the identification of others' emotions. In a recent study, we have found increased activation in the anterior insular cortex (aIns) that could be attributed to affect sharing rather than perceptual saliency, when seeing another person genuinely experiencing pain as opposed to merely acting to be in pain. In that prior study, effective connectivity between aIns and the right supramarginal gyrus (rSMG) was revealed to represent what another person really feels. In the present study, we used a similar paradigm to investigate the corresponding neural signatures in the domain of empathy for disgust - with participants seeing others genuinely sniffing unpleasant odors as compared to pretending to smell something disgusting (in fact the disgust expressions in both conditions were acted for reasons of experimental control). Consistent with the previous findings on pain, we found stronger activations in aIns associated with affect sharing for genuine disgust (inferred) compared with pretended disgust. However, instead of rSMG we found engagement of the olfactory cortex. Using dynamic causal modeling (DCM), we estimated the neural dynamics of aIns and the olfactory cortex between the genuine and pretended conditions. This revealed an increased excitatory modulatory effect for genuine disgust compared to pretended disgust. For genuine disgust only, brain-to-behavior regression analyses highlighted a link between the observed modulatory effect and a few empathic traits. Altogether, the current findings complement and expand our previous work, by showing that perceptual saliency alone does not explain responses in the insular cortex. Moreover, it reveals that different brain networks are implicated in a modality-specific way when sharing the affective experiences associated with pain vs. disgust.

The alterations in event-related potential responses to pain empathy in breast cancer survivors treated with chemotherapy

Background

Previous findings indicated that breast cancer patients often have dysfunction in empathy and other cognitive functions during or after chemotherapy. However, the manifestations and possible neuro-electrophysiological mechanisms of pain empathy impairment in breast cancer patients after chemotherapy were still unknown.

Objective

The current study aimed to investigate the potential correlations between pain empathy impairment and event-related potentials (ERP) in breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Methods

Twenty-two breast cancer patients were evaluated on a neuropsychological test and pain empathy paradigm before and after chemotherapy, containing the Chinese version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI-C), while recording ERP data.

Results

The empathic concern scores were lower and personal distress scores were higher on IRI-C task compared with those before chemotherapy (t = 3.039, p < 0.01; t = −2.324, p < 0.05, respectively). Meanwhile, the accuracy rates were lower than those before chemotherapy for both pain and laterality tasks on the pain empathy paradigm (F = 5.099, P = 0.035). However, the response time was no significant differences before and after chemotherapy (F = 0.543, P = 0.469). Further, the amplitude of the N1 component was significantly increased (F = 38.091, P < 0.001), and the amplitude of the P2 component was significantly decreased (F = 15.046, P = 0.001) in the subsequent ERP study. A linear mixed effect model was used to analyze the correlation, the average amplitude of N1 and P2 were positively correlated with the accuracy rates in laterality tasks (r = 1.765, r = 1.125, respectively, P < 0.05).

Conclusion

The results indicated that pain empathy impairment was performed in chemotherapeutic breast cancer patients, which was possibly correlated to the changes of N1 and P2 components in ERP. These findings provide neuro-electrophysiological information about chemo-brain in breast cancer patients.

Neural correlates of the attentional bias towards pain-related faces in fibromyalgia patients: An ERP study using a dot-probe task

BACKGROUND

One of the major cognitive deficits in fibromyalgia has been linked to the hypervigilance phenomenon. It is mainly reflected as a negative bias for allocating attentional resources towards both threatening and pain-related information. Although the interest in its study has recently grown, the neural temporal dynamics of the attentional bias in fibromyalgia still remains an open question.

METHOD

Fifty participants (25 fibromyalgia patients and 25 healthy control subjects) performed a dot-probe task. Two types of facial expressions (pain-related and neutral) were employed as signal stimuli. Then, as a target stimulus, a single dot replaced the location of one of these two faces. Event-related potentials (ERP) in response to facial expressions and target stimulation (i.e., dot) were recorded. Reaction time (RT) and accuracy measures in the experimental task were collected as behavioural outcomes.

RESULTS

Temporal dynamics of brain electrical activity were analysed on two ERP components (P2 and N2a) sensitive to the facial expressions meaning. Pain-related faces elicited higher frontal P2 amplitudes than neutral faces for the whole sample. Interestingly, an interaction effect between group and facial expressions was also found showing that pain-related faces elicited enhanced P2 amplitudes (at fronto-central regions, in this case) compared to neutral faces only when the group of patients was considered. Furthermore, higher P2 amplitudes were observed in response to pain-related faces in patients with fibromyalgia compared to healthy control participants. Additionally, a shorter latency of P2 (at centro-parietal regions) was also detected for pain-related facial expressions compared to neutral faces. Regarding the amplitude of N2a, it was lower for patients as compared to the control group. Non-relevant effects of the target stimulation on the ERPs were found. However, patients with fibromyalgia exhibited slower RT to locate the single dot for incongruent trials as compared to congruent and neutral trials.

CONCLUSIONS

Data suggest the presence of an attentional bias in fibromyalgia that it would be followed by a deficit in the allocation of attentional resources to further process pain-related information. Altogether the current results suggest that attentional biases in fibromyalgia might be explained by automatic attentional mechanisms, which seem to be accompanied by an alteration of more strategic or controlled attentional components.

Altered brain activity in the bilateral frontal cortices and neural correlation with cognitive impairment in schizophrenia

Cognitive impairments are core aspects of schizophrenia and are highly related to poor outcomes. However, the effect of therapy on cognitive impairments remains unsatisfactory as its biological mechanisms are not fully understood. The purpose of this study was to investigate the disrupted intrinsic neural activity of the frontal areas and to further examine the functional connectivity of frontal areas related to cognitive impairments in schizophrenia. We collected brain imaging data using a 3T Siemens Prisma MRI system in 32 patients with schizophrenia and 34 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. The mean fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (mfALFF) in the frontal regions was calculated and analyzed to evaluate regional neural activity alterations in schizophrenia. Seed regions were generated from clusters showing significant changes in mfALFF in schizophrenia, and its resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) with other brain regions were estimated to detect possible aberrant rs-FC indicating cognitive impairments in schizophrenia. We found that mfALFF in the bilateral frontal cortices was increased in schizophrenia. mfALFF-based rs-FC revealed that decreased rs-FC between left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) and left medial superior frontal gyrus (MFSG) was associated with poor delayed memory (r = 0.566, Bonferroni-corrected p = 0.012). These findings demonstrate increased neural activity in the frontal cortices in schizophrenia. FC analysis revealed a diminished rs-FC pattern between the left MFG and left MSFG that was associated with cognitive impairments. These findings have provided deeper insight into the alterations in brain function related to specific domains of cognitive impairment and may provide evidence for precise interventions for cognitive deficits in schizophrenia.

Neural dynamics between anterior insular cortex and right supramarginal gyrus dissociate genuine affect sharing from perceptual saliency of pretended pain

Empathy for pain engages both shared affective responses and self-other distinction. In this study, we addressed the highly debated question of whether neural responses previously linked to affect sharing could result from the perception of salient affective displays. Moreover, we investigated how the brain network involved in affect sharing and self-other distinction underpinned our response to a pain that is either perceived as genuine or pretended (while in fact both were acted for reasons of experimental control). We found stronger activations in regions associated with affect sharing (anterior insula [aIns] and anterior mid-cingulate cortex) as well as with affective self-other distinction (right supramarginal gyrus [rSMG]), in participants watching video clips of genuine vs. pretended facial expressions of pain. Using dynamic causal modeling, we then assessed the neural dynamics between the right aIns and rSMG in these two conditions. This revealed a reduced inhibitory effect on the aIns to rSMG connection for genuine pain compared to pretended pain. For genuine pain only, brain-to-behavior regression analyses highlighted a linkage between this inhibitory effect on the one hand, and pain ratings as well as empathic traits on the other. These findings imply that if the pain of others is genuine and thus calls for an appropriate empathic response, neural responses in the aIns indeed seem related to affect sharing and self-other distinction is engaged to avoid empathic over-arousal. In contrast, if others merely pretend to be in pain, the perceptual salience of their painful expression results in neural responses that are down-regulated to avoid inappropriate affect sharing and social support.

Overlapping and specific neural correlates for empathizing, affective mentalizing, and cognitive mentalizing: A coordinate-based meta-analytic study

While the discussion on the foundations of social understanding mainly revolves around the notions of empathy, affective mentalizing, and cognitive mentalizing, their degree of overlap versus specificity is still unclear. We took a meta-analytic approach to unveil the neural bases of cognitive mentalizing, affective mentalizing, and empathy, both in healthy individuals and pathological conditions characterized by social deficits such as schizophrenia and autism. We observed partially overlapping networks for cognitive and affective mentalizing in the medial prefrontal, posterior cingulate, and lateral temporal cortex, while empathy mainly engaged fronto-insular, somatosensory, and anterior cingulate cortex. Adjacent process-specific regions in the posterior lateral temporal, ventrolateral, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex might underpin a transition from abstract representations of cognitive mental states detached from sensory facets to emotionally-charged representations of affective mental states. Altered mentalizing-related activity involved distinct sectors of the posterior lateral temporal cortex in schizophrenia and autism, while only the latter group displayed abnormal empathy related activity in the amygdala. These data might inform the design of rehabilitative treatments for social cognitive deficits.

Shared and distinct functional networks for empathy and pain processing: a systematic review and meta-analysis of fMRI studies

BACKGROUND

Empathy for pain is a complex phenomenon incorporating sensory, cognitive and affective processes. Functional neuroimaging studies indicate a rich network of brain activations for empathic processing. However, previous research focused on core activations in bilateral anterior insula (AI) and anterior cingulate/anterior midcingulate cortex (ACC/aMCC) which are also typically present during nociceptive (pain) processing. Theoretical understanding of empathy would benefit from empirical investigation of shared and contrasting brain activations for empathic and nociceptive processing.

METHOD

Thirty-nine empathy for observed pain studies (1112 participants; 527 foci) were selected by systematic review. Coordinate based meta-analysis (activation likelihood estimation) was performed and novel contrast analyses compared neurobiological processing of empathy with a comprehensive meta-analysis of 180 studies of nociceptive processing (Tanasescu et al., 2016).

RESULTS

Conjunction analysis indicated overlapping activations for empathy and nociception in AI, aMCC, somatosensory and inferior frontal regions. Contrast analysis revealed increased likelihood of activation for empathy, relative to nociception, in bilateral supramarginal, inferior frontal and occipitotemporal regions. Nociception preferentially activated bilateral posterior insula, somatosensory cortex and aMCC.

CONCLUSION

Our findings support the likelihood of shared and distinct neural networks for empathic, relative to nociceptive, processing. This offers succinct empirical support for recent tiered or modular theoretical accounts of empathy.

Pharmacological fMRI provides evidence for opioidergic modulation of discrimination of facial pain expressions

The endogenous opioid system is strongly involved in the modulation of pain. However, the potential role of this system in perceiving painful facial expressions from others has not been sufficiently explored as of yet. To elucidate the contribution of the opioid system to the perception of painful facial expressions, we conducted a double‐blind, within‐subjects pharmacological functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, in which 42 participants engaged in an emotion discrimination task (pain vs. disgust expressions) in two experimental sessions, receiving either the opioid receptor antagonist naltrexone or an inert substance (placebo). On the behavioral level, participants less frequently judged an expression as pain under naltrexone as compared to placebo. On the neural level, parametric modulation of activation in the (putative) right fusiform face area (FFA), which was correlated with increased pain intensity, was higher under naltrexone than placebo. Regression analyses revealed that brain activity in the right FFA significantly predicted behavioral performance in disambiguating pain from disgust, both under naltrexone and placebo. These findings suggest that reducing opioid system activity decreased participants' sensitivity for facial expressions of pain, and that this was linked to possibly compensatory engagement of processes related to visual perception, rather than to higher level affective processes, and pain regulation.

The behavioral and neural findings of this psychopharmacological fMRI study shed light on a causal role of the opioid system in the discrimination of painful facial expressions, paving the way for further exploration of clinical implications in the domains of pain diagnosis and treatment, on the one hand, and future research on the relationship between basic socio‐perceptual processing and empathy, on the other.

The Neurosciences of Health Communication: An fNIRS Analysis of Prefrontal Cortex and Porn Consumption in Young Women for the Development of Prevention Health Programs

This work explores the use of fNIRS neuroimaging technique using young female college students with different levels of consumption of pornography, and the activation of the prefrontal cortex (cue reactivity) when viewing a pornographic clip (cue exposure) versus a control clip. The results indicate that the viewing of the pornographic clip (vs. control clip) causes an activation of Brodmann's area 45 of the right hemisphere (BA 45, pars triangularis) (p < 0.01). An effect also appears between the level of self-reported consumption and the activation of right BA 45: the higher the level of self-reported consumption, the greater the activation (p < 0.01). On the other hand, those participants who have never consumed pornographic material do not show activity of the right BA 45 compared to the control clip (p < 0.01) indicating a qualitative difference between non-consumers and consumers. These results are consistent with other research made in the field of addictions. It is hypothesized that the mirror neuron system may be involved, through the mechanism of empathy, which could provoke vicarious eroticism. Finally, we suggest the applications that these results may have for primary and secondary prevention programs in the field of problematic consumption of pornography.

Paracetamol alters empathy scores in healthy and headache subjects: Functional MRI correlates

INTRODUCTION

Although previous evidence suggest that paracetamol decreases psychological reactivity in healthy subjects, there is still no confirmed correlation between the empathy scores and brain activity in healthy and headache patients after paracetamol treatment.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The study group included 16 patients with tension-type headache, and 12 healthy age-and sex-matched controls. After a detailed neurological examination Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and Empathy for Pain Scale (EPS) were applied to all subjects. Next, 1000 mg paracetamol tablet was administered orally, after administration of paracetamol, EPS were repeated, and fMRI was performed to all subjects.

RESULTS

We have revealed increased empathy scores in the headache group after the paracetamol treatment which were associated with significant alterations in brain regions which play a critical role in the processing of empathy.

DISCUSSION

The observed neuroimaging and clinical difference between healthy and headache subjects could be related to the fact that pain perception in healthy subjects might differ in some aspects from the mechanisms of empathy in headache-experienced patients.

CONCLUSION

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that evaluated the paracetamol treatment and neural networks' correlation with pain empathy in healthy and headache individuals.

Gray Matter Changes in the Orbitofrontal-Paralimbic Cortex in Male Youths With Non-comorbid Conduct Disorder

Conduct disorder is one of the most common developmental psychiatric disorders which is characterized by persistent aggressive and antisocial behaviors during childhood or adolescence. Previous neuroimaging studies have investigated the neural correlates underlying CD and demonstrated several constructive findings. However, Individuals with CD are at high risk for comorbidities, which might give rise to the inconsistencies of existed findings. It remains unclear which neuroanatomical abnormalities are specifically related to CD without comorbidities. Using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) data of 69 CD and 69 typically developing (TD) male youths (aged 14–17 years), the present study aims at investigating gray matter volume alterations of non-comorbid CD (i.e., not comorbid with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, substance abuse disorder, anxiety or depression). We also examined how regional gray matter volumes were related to callous-unemotional (CU) traits and conduct problems in the CD group. The whole-brain analysis revealed decreased gray matter volumes in the right pre-postcentral cortex, supramarginal gyrus and right putamen in CD youths compared with TD youths. The region-of-interest analyses showed increased gray matter volumes in the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and right orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in CD youths. Correlation analysis found that gray matter volume in the left amygdala was negatively correlated with CU traits in CD participants. These results demonstrated that gray matter volume in the orbitofrontal-paralimbic cortex, including OFC, STG and amygdala, might characterize the male youths with non-comorbid CD and might contribute to different severe forms and trajectories of CD.

Group membership dictates the neural correlates of social optimism biases

Optimism bias, i.e. expecting the future to hold more desirable than undesirable outcomes, also extends to people that we like or admire. However, it remains unknown how the brain generates this social optimism bias. In this study, respondents estimated the likelihood of future desirable and undesirable outcomes for an in-group and three out-groups: warm-incompetent, cold-competent, and cold-incompetent. We found a strong social optimism bias for the in-group and the warm out-group and an inverted pattern for the cold-incompetent out-group. For all groups, scores of social optimism bias correlated with the brain activity in structures that respondents differentially engaged depending on the target social group. In line with our hypotheses, evaluating the in-group recruited the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex, whereas evaluating the warm out-group engaged the posterior insula, mid cingulate cortex, and somatosensory cortices. These findings suggest different underlying cognitive mechanisms of social optimism bias for these groups, despite similar behavioural patterns. Thinking about the cold out-groups recruited the right anterior temporal lobe, and temporoparietal junction. Evaluating the cold-incompetent out-group additionally recruited the anterior insula, inferior frontal cortex and dorsomedial frontal cortex. We discuss these neuroimaging findings with respect to their putative cognitive functions.

A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies on pain empathy: investigating the role of visual information and observers' perspective

Empathy relies on brain systems that support the interaction between an observer's mental state and cues about the others' experience. Beyond the core brain areas typically activated in pain empathy studies (insular and anterior cingulate cortices), the diversity of paradigms used may reveal secondary networks that subserve other more specific processes. A coordinate-based meta-analysis of fMRI experiments on pain empathy was conducted to obtain activation likelihood estimates along three factors and seven conditions: visual cues (body parts, facial expressions), visuospatial (first-person, thirdperson), and cognitive (self-, stimuli-, other-oriented tasks) perspectives. The core network was found across cues and perspectives, and common activation was observed in higher-order visual areas. Body-parts distinctly activated areas related with sensorimotor processing (superior and inferior parietal lobules, anterior insula) while facial expression distinctly involved the inferior frontal gyrus. Self- compared to other-perspective produced distinct activations in the left insula while stimulus- versus other-perspective produced distinctive responses in the inferior frontal and parietal lobules, precentral gyrus, and cerebellum. Pain empathy relies on a core network which is modulated by several secondary networks. The involvement of the latter seems to depend on the visual cues available and the observer's mental state that can be influenced by specific instructions.