Beyond Sharing Unpleasant Affect—Evidence for Pain-Specific Opioidergic Modulation of Empathy for Pain

Autor(en)

Markus Rütgen, Eva-Maria Wirth, Igor Riecansky, Allan Hummer, Christian Windischberger, Predrag Petrovic, Giorgia Silani, Claus Lamm

Abstrakt

The neural mechanisms underpinning empathy for pain are still a matter of debate. One of the major questions is whether empathy-related pain responses indicate domain-general vs. pain-specific affective responses. Using fMRI and psychopharmacological experiments, we investigated if placebo analgesia reduces first-hand and empathic experiences of affective touch, and compared them to the effects on pain. Placebo analgesia also affected the first-hand and empathic experience of unpleasant touch, implicating domain-general effects. However, and in contrast to pain and pain empathy, administering an opioid antagonist did not block these effects. Moreover, placebo analgesia reduced neural activity related to both modalities in the bilateral insular cortex, while it specifically modulated activity in the anterior midcingulate cortex for pain and pain empathy. These findings provide causal evidence that one of the major neurochemical systems for pain regulation is involved in pain empathy, and crucially substantiate the role of shared representations in empathy.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Psychologie der Kognition, Emotion und Methoden, Institut für Philosophie, Institut für Klinische und Gesundheitspsychologie

Externe Organisation(en)

Medizinische Universität Wien, Karolinska Institute

Journal

Cerebral Cortex

Band

31

Seiten

2773–2786

ISSN

1047-3211

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.10.143495

Publikationsdatum

01-2021

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

501011 Kognitionspsychologie, 106025 Neurobiologie, 501030 Kognitionswissenschaft

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/e07df833-f5db-4962-8270-fd9ce1095419