Pain and Empathy

I was assured after reading the review article “Social Cognitive Neuroscience: where are we headed?” as in the last few weeks I have become disenchanted with the preoccupation of brain imaging in neuroscience. They ask why is the field of neuroimaging important in understanding how the brain and in turn the mind works? By understanding what regions and networks are responsible in mental processes we can begin to understand what happens in the mind and in the brain that is responsible for specific behaviors. For example, there may be elements to the process of fear that would involve regions of the brain that we could not deduce through behavioral observation or could not be described by the participant because it is below the level of consciousness. There may also be areas of brain activation that overlap in mental processes that can explain the complexity behind emotions. In the study of empathy and pain they had couples perform a task where one partner suffered an electric shock and the other partners brain was scanned as they anticipated their partners pain. They found that not only were brain regions activated by the expectation of another’s pain but was overlapped by the activation of areas that signifies the experience of going through pain for ones self. Only through neuroimaging can they better explain then mental processes that occur during an empathetic episode.

I wonder then how one could define empathy with the information from modern brain imaging techniques. Does empathy exist when only one can experience someone else’s pain or pleasure? Are those who are more empathetic hold a greater mental capacity to actually experience someone else’s emotions? The article may be leaning towards a yes as it explains the role that mirror neurons play in social behavior and how there is an area in the brain that allows us to “mind-read”. Evolutionarily empathy makes perfect sense as it is a tool that helps weed out the cheats at the poker table and it becomes advantageous to be in someone’s mind while in the process of bargaining. On page 219 of the review they state, “There is some evidence that untrustworthy people might have more memorable faces than trustworthy faces”. There is a reoccurring theme of the importance of face reading in the study of empathy and I was wondering what Paul Ekman would say in regards to empathy being a skill that one can learn.

The second article I would like to address is “ Why rejection hurts” as it illustrates how neurological systems overlap in an unusual and unexpected way. They explain why rejection hurts by starting with the definition of social pain, which is the “distressing experience arising from the perception of actual or potential psychological distance from close others or a social group.” This simplistic definition gives rise to the importance of companionship for humans and other social animals and they link this to self esteem as it can be an indicator to social acceptance and integration. They focus on the anterior cingulated cortex (ACC) and specifically its dorsal subdivision (dACC) to explain how the brain reacts to physical and emotional pain. The dACC experiences neighboring and sometimes overlapping activation during the experience of physical pain and when there is a conflict or a discrepancy between two opposing facts. I wish they illustrated what they meant by “discrepancy detection” better and what type of experiments led to the detection of activation in this area. I am battling with the relationship between discrepancy detection and how that relates to social rejection. But to get to their point, they illustrate the overlap in the two systems by comparing it to an alarm system. The sensor is the discrepancy detector and pain distress is the alarm bell sounding and the overlap of these two areas may be a complementary “neural alarm system”. What is the most striking to me is how people that are in chronic pain are more likely to be preoccupied with relationship status and worried about rejection. Those too who are rejection sensitive report more stress while watching a video depicting physical pain. This reminds me of our focus on empathy and what constitutes an empathetic person in regards to their psychological make up and their brain chemistry. There is sometimes a striking difference in people’s empathetic abilities and I wonder exactly what are the neurological differences in these people against a standard norm (if this is even possible).

On a side note I was wondering how endorphins and dopamine work as I know they complement each other, but I am not sure how. I was reminded in our last class how my dad had to quite smoking and he has been smoking two packs for about thirty years (that was my spring vacation). He actually took it well, mostly because he was on some new, fancy neurotransmitter blocker. But one night he was grinding up fresh horseradish for dinner and I caught him sniffing the stuff like he was at Studio 54. I guess it made him feel better but I was trying to understand why it was helping with his cravings and anxiety brought on from his nicotine addiction.