empathy and the brain

Just going over some lecture notes for my neuroscience course, and came across this info which might be interesting to many vegans.

There are two regions in the human brain which are active when we experience pain. These are called the cingulate cortex and the insula cortex. Brain scans show that these areas are active during pain sensations, where there are other regions which are active during other kinds of tactile sensation. However, when experiencing an empathetic response while witnessing the suffering of others, these same two cortical regions become active.

So your empathy toward the suffering of humans or other animals is actually stimulating the same part of the brain that would be active if you yourself were suffering physical pain. I'm not sure if it is the same for the "idea" of suffering, where for example we are saddened by the plight of a homeless person or the poor conditions of a factory farm as these don't relate specifically to pain. It may be that there is another region of the brain which is active in such circumstances (i'll update this if I learn more about it).

But it's very interesting nonetheless [unless you're not a nerd like me].

Wed, 10/15/2008 - 9:57pm — adam_antichrist

Submitted by KitKatKootie (not verified) on Thu, 10/16/2008 - 8:49am.

oh my brain hurts. you all are way smarter than me, but i love to read all this and try to understand it. thanks!
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~
it will all be alright in the end. if it's not alright, it's not the end.

Submitted by ...cokaru... on Thu, 10/16/2008 - 1:45am.

What timing [in cokaru land] that you posted this today. I went to our first "international science festival" this past Sunday...one of the lectures that I went to was on body language. The lecturer mentioned one of the studies on empathy where a person's amygdala would light up if they were experiencing fear, or just looking at a picture of a face that had a fearful expression. Pretty cool stuff. Made me wonder a couple of things...for one, it seems to sort of explain why when you're experiencing empathy you might feel as if you're actually feeling what the other person is for a bit...and secondly, if empathy is actually kind of an autonomic response, why are the guys that I date so absolutely clueless when it comes to picking up what I'm feeling unless I beat them over the head with the information? lol :D

Submitted by Bambina on Thu, 10/16/2008 - 10:06am.

Women are naturally better readers of body language.

In fact, many men often don't pick up on it even after being told what to look for and need to be told directly about your 'problem' or 'desire'.

Submitted by animalia_libero on Wed, 10/15/2008 - 10:30pm.

I did my honors thesis on similar concepts in college. Basically, when you think about tasting something, you activate the same center of your brain as if you were actually tasting something, if you remember something, you activate the same centers of the brain as you did when you experienced that thing. That's the short version.

I hope your neurosci course isn't making you do animal research :-/

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"Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty."
-Stanislaw J. Lee

Submitted by adam_antichrist on Thu, 10/16/2008 - 2:33am.

no it's theory only, I'm just doing it for fun.
What you described sounds like mirror neurons? I learned a bit about that studying animal behaviour.

use less everything!

Submitted by animalia_libero on Thu, 10/16/2008 - 7:49am.

Well mirror neurons in short, work by mirroring what you see. So, it's sort of what is thought to cause the yawning effect. You know, when you see someone yawn, then you yawn, then everyone yawns, etc. It's apparently telling the mirror neurons in your brain that people are yawning, therefore oxygen may be depleted and you should yawn, too. This of course, happens in milliseconds :-)

My project dealt with semantic memory and proactive interference. Basically, short-term memory (stm) can only hold so much info at a time. If it is not consolidated (into long term memory) it is not stored well. I took a theory that this happens due to the limited capacity of stm based on semantic nature (ie fruits are in orbito-frontal cortex, animals are in ventral temporal cortex, etc) and so forth. I'll stop there because I can go on about it for hours.

I am glad we are talking about this. I have been feeling disillusioned with psych lately but talking about this stuff makes it fun again.

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"Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty."
-Stanislaw J. Lee

Submitted by cacey on Wed, 10/15/2008 - 10:12pm.

Thanks for sharing AA! I really dig this sort of info. So, keep me posted!

Submitted by adam_antichrist on Wed, 10/15/2008 - 10:19pm.

well I guessed you were a nerd missy, what with the tofu robot and shit

use less everything!