Gender differences in the mu rhythm during empathy for pain: An electroencephalographic study

Brain Research

Volumn 1251, Issue , 2009, Pages 176-184

  Yang, Chia Yen ^a   Decety, Jean ^b   Lee, Shinyi ^c   Chen, Chenyi ^c   Cheng, Yawei ^c  

^a CHING YUN UNIVERSITY   (Taiwan)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

^c NATIONAL YANG MING UNIVERSITY   (Taiwan)

Author keywords

Empathy; Gender difference; Mimicry; Mu rhythm; Pain

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; BRAIN FUNCTION; CONTROLLED STUDY; ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY; EMPATHY; FEMALE; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; MALE; MU RHYTHM; NOCICEPTION; PAIN; PRIORITY JOURNAL; SENSORIMOTOR CORTEX; SEX DIFFERENCE; SOMATOSENSORY STIMULATION; TASK PERFORMANCE; VISUAL STIMULATION;

ADULT; BIOLOGICAL CLOCKS; BRAIN MAPPING; CEREBRAL CORTEX; ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY; EMOTIONS; EMPATHY; EVOKED POTENTIALS; FEMALE; HUMANS; MALE; MOTOR CORTEX; NEURAL INHIBITION; NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS; PAIN; PERIODICITY; PHOTIC STIMULATION; SEX CHARACTERISTICS; SOMATOSENSORY CORTEX; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 58149386183     PISSN: 00068993     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2008.11.062     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. Avenanti A., Bueti D., Galati G., and Aglioti S.M. Transcranial magnetic stimulation highlights the sensorimotor side of empathy for pain. Nat. Neurosci. 8 (2005) 955-960
2. Baron-Cohen S., and Wheelwright S. The empathy quotient: an investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism, and normal sex differences. J. Autism Dev. Disord. 34 (2004) 163-175
3. Baron-Cohen S., Knickmeyer R., and Belmonte M.K. Sex differences in the brain: implications for explaining autism. Science 310 (2005) 819-823
4. Bufalari I., Aprile T., Avenanti A., Di Russo F., and Aglioti S.M. Empathy for pain and touch in the human somatosensory cortex. Cereb. Cortex 17 (2007) 2553-2561
5. Cheng Y., Tzeng O.J.L., Decety J., Imada T., and Hsieh J.C. Gender differences in the human mirror system: a magnetoencephalography. NeuroReport 17 (2006) 1115-1119
6. Cheng Y., Decety J., Lin C.P., Hsieh J.C., Hung D., and Tzeng O.J.L. Sex differences in the spinal excitability during observation of bipedal locomotion. NeuroReport 18 (2007) 887-890
7. Cheng Y., Lin C.P., Hsu Y.Y., Lim K.E., Hung D., and Decety J. Expertise modulates the perception of pain in others. Curr. Biol. 17 (2007) 1708-1713
8. Cheng Y., Lee P.L., Yang C.Y., Lin C.P., Hung D., and Decety J. Gender differences in the mu rhythm of the human mirror-neuron system. PLoS ONE 3 (2008) e2113
9. Cheng Y., Yang C.Y., Lin C.P., Lee P.L., and Decety J. The perception of pain in others suppresses somatosensory oscillations: a magnetoencephalography study. NeuroImage 40 (2008) 1833-1840
10. Cialdini R.B., Schaller M., Houlihan D., Arps K., Fultz J., and Beaman A.L. Empathy-based helping: is it selflessly or selfishly motivated?. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 52 (1987) 749-758
11. Davis M.H. Empathy: a Social Psychological Approach (1996), Westview Press, Madison, WI
12. De Waal F.B.M., and Thompson E. Primates, monk and the mind. J. Conscious. Stud. 12 (2005) 1-17
13. Decety J. A social cognitive neuroscience model of human empathy. In: Harmon-Jones E., and Winkielman P. (Eds). Social Neuroscience: Integrating Biological and Psychological Explanations of Social Behavior (2007), Guilford Publications, New York 246-270
14. Decety J., and Jackson P.L. The functional architecture of human empathy. Behav. Cogn. Neurosci. Rev. 3 (2004) 71-100
15. Decety J., and Lamm C. Human empathy through the lens of social neuroscience. The Scientific Word Journal 6 (2006) 1146-1163
16. Decety J., and Batson C.D. Social neuroscience approaches to interpersonal sensitivity. Social Neuroscience 2 (2007) 151-157
17. Decety J., Michalska K.J., and Akitsuki Y. Who caused the pain? A functional MRI investigation of empathy and intentionality in children. Neuropsychologia 46 (2008) 2607-2614
18. Dimberg U., and Lundquist L.O. Gender differences in facial reactions to facial expressions. Biol. Psychol. 30 (1990) 151-159
19. Eisenberg N., and Fabes R.A. Empathy: conceptualization, measurement, and relation to prosocial behavior. Motiv. Emotion 14 (1990) 131-149
20. Fan Y., and Han S. Temporal dynamics of neural mechanisms involved in empathy for pain: an event-related brain potential study. Neuropsychologia 46 (2008) 160-173
21. Garcia E., Godoy-Izquierdo D., Godoy J.F., Perez M., and Lopez-Chicheri I. Gender differences in pressure pain threshold in a repeated measures assessments. Psychol. Health Med. 12 (2007) 567-579
22. Gastaut H. Etude electrocorticographique de la reactivite des rhythmes rolandiques. Rev. Neurol. 87 (1952) 176-182
23. Gastaut H.J., and Bert J. EEG changes during cinematographic presentation. Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol. 6 (1954) 433-444
24. Gazzola V., Aziz-Zaadeh L., and Keysers C. Empathy and the somatotopic auditory mirror system in humans. Curr. Biol. 16 (2008) 1824-1829
25. Geary D.C. Male, Female: the Evolution of Human Sex Differences (1998), American Psychological Association, Washington, DC
26. Goubert L., Craig K.D., Vervoort T., Morley S., Sullivan M.J.L., de C. Williams A.C., Cano A., and Crombez G. Facing others in pain: the effects of empathy. Pain 118 (2005) 285-288
27. Gu X., and Han S. Attention and reality constraints on the neural processes of empathy for pain. NeuroImage 36 (2007) 256-267
28. Hall J.A. Nonverbal sex differences (1984), Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore
29. Han S., Fan Y., and Mao L. Gender difference in empathy for pain: an electrophysiological investigation. Brain Res. 1196 (2008) 85-93
30. Hatfield, E., in press. Emotional contagion and empathy. In: Decety, J., Ickes, W. (Eds.), The Social Neuroscience of Empathy. MIT Press, Cambridge.
31. Henderson L.A., Gandevia S.C., and Macefield V.G. Gender differences in brain activity evoked by muscle and cutaneous pain: a retrospective study of single-trial fMRI data. NeuroImage 39 (2008) 1867-1876
32. Jackson P.L., Meltzoff A.N., and Decety J. How do we perceive the pain of others? A window into the neural processes involved in empathy. NeuroImage 24 (2005) 771-779
33. Jackson P.L., Rainville P., and Decety J. To what extent do we share the pain of others? Insight from the neural bases of pain empathy. Pain 125 (2006) 5-9
34. Jackson P.L., Brunet E., Meltzoff A.N., and Decety J. Empathy examined through the neural mechanisms involved in imagining how I feel versus how you feel pain: an event-related fMRI study. Neuropsychologia 44 (2006) 752-761
35. Lacroix -Fralish M.L., Tawfik V.L., Nutile-McMenemy N., and Deleo J.A. Neuregulin 1 is a pronociceptive cytokine that is regulated by progesterone in the spinal cord: implications for sex specific pain modulation. Eur. J. Pain 12 (2008) 94-103
36. Lamm C., Batson C.D., and Decety J. The neural substrate of human empathy: effects of perspective-taking and cognitive appraisal. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 19 (2007) 42-58
37. Lamm C., Nusbaum H.C., Meltzoff A.N., and Decety J. What are you feeling? Using functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess the modulation of sensory and affective responses during empathy for pain. PLoS ONE 12 (2007) e1292
38. McClure E.B. A meta-analytic review of sex differences in facial expression processing and their development in infants, children, and adolescents. Psychol. Bull. 125 (2000) 424-453
39. Maffiuletti N.A., Herrero A.J., Jubeau M., Impellizzeri F.M., and Bizzini M. Differences in electrical stimulation thresholds between men and women. Ann. Neurol. 63 (2008) 507-512
40. MacLean P.D. Brain evolution relating to family, play, and the separation call. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 42 (1985) 405-417
41. McRobert J.A., Li J., Ennes H.S., and Mayer E.A. Sex-dependent differences in the activity and modulation of N-methyl-d-aspartic acid receptors in rate dorsal root ganglia neurons. Neuroscience 148 (2007) 1015-1020
42. Mehrabian A., and Epstein N. A measure of emotional empathy. J. Pers. 40 (1972) 525-543
43. Moriguchi Y., Decety J., Ohnishi T., Maeda M., Matsuda H., and Komaki G. Empathy and judging other's pain: an fMRI study of alexithymia. Cereb. Cortex 17 (2007) 2223-2234
44. Moulton E.A., Keaser M.L., Gullapalli R.P., Maitra R., and Greenspan J.D. Sex differences in the cerebral BOLD signal response to painful heat stimuli. Am. J. Physiol. Regul. Integr. Comp. Physiol. 291 (2006) R257-267
45. Oberman L.M., Hubbard E.M., McCleery J.P., Altschuler E.L., Ramachandran V.S., and Pineda J.A. EEG evidence for mirror neuron dysfunction in autism spectrum disorders. Cogn. Brain Res. 24 (2005) 190-198
46. Oberman L.M., Ramachandran V.S., and Pineda J.A. Modulation of mu suppression in children with autism spectrum disorders in response to familiar to unfamiliar stimuli: the mirror neuron hypothesis. Neuropsychologia 46 (2008) 1558-1565
47. Paulson P.E., Minoshima S., Morrow T.J., and Casey K.L. Gender differences in pain perception and patterns of cerebral activation during noxious heat stimulation in humans. Pain 76 (1998) 223-229
48. Pineda J.A. The functional significance of mu rhythms: translating "seeing" and "hearing" into "doing". Brain Res. Brain Res. Rev. 50 (2005) 57-68
49. Pfurtscheller G., and Limesch W. Event-related desynchronization during motor behavior and visual information processing. Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol. Suppl. 42 (1991) 58-65
50. Pfurtscheller G., and Neuper C. Motor imagery activates primary sensorimotor area in humans. Neurosci. Lett. 239 (1997) 65-68
51. Pfurtscheller G., and Andrew C. Event-related changes of band power and coherence: methodology and interpretation. J. Clin. Neurophysiol. 16 (1999) 512-519
52. Preston S.D., and de Waal F.B.M. Empathy: its ultimate and proximate bases. Behav. Brain Sci. 25 (2002) 1-72
53. Schulte-Rüther M., Markowitsch H.J., Shah N.J., Fink G.R., and Piefke M. Gender differences in brain networks supporting empathy. NeuroImage 42 (2008) 393-403
54. Singer T., Seymour B., O'Doherty J.P., Stephan K.E., Dolan R.J., and Frith C.D. Empathy for pain involves the affective but not the sensory components of pain. Science 303 (2004) 1157-1161
55. Siu A.M.H., and Shek D.T.L. Validation of the interpersonal reactivity index in a Chinese context. Res. Social Work Prac. 15 (2005) 118-126
56. Vierck C.J., Acosta-Rua A.J., Rossi H.L., and Neubert J.K. Sex differences in thermal pain sensitivity and sympathetic reactivity for two strains of rate. J. Pain 9 (2008) 739-749
57. Wiesenfeld-Hallin Z. Sex differences in pain perception. Gend. Med. 2 (2005) 137-145
58. Wood W., and Eagly A.H. A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychol. Bull. 128 (2002) 699-727