Social cognitive neuroscience of empathy: Concepts, circuits, and genes

Emotion Review

Volumn 4, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 9-17

  Walter, Henrik ^a  

^a CHARITÉ UNIVERSITÄTSMEDIZIN BERLIN   (Germany)

Author keywords

empathy; genetics; imaging genetics; theory of mind

Indexed keywords

EID: 84856456932     PISSN: 17540739     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1754073911421379     Document Type: Review

References (63)

1. Amodio D. M., Frith C. D.. Meeting of minds: The medial frontal cortex and social cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2006 ; 7: 268-277
2. Bartz J., Zaki J., Bolger N., Hollander E., Ludwig N., Kolevzon A., Ochsner K.. Oxytocin selectively improves empathic accuracy in less socially proficient individuals. Psychological Science. 2010 ; 21: 1426-1428
3. Bastiaansen J. A. C. J., Thioux M., Keysers C.. Evidence for mirror systems in emotions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2009 ; 364: 2391-2404
4. Batson C. D. The social neuroscience of empathy. Decety J. Ickes W., ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press ; 2009: 3-16.
5. Belsky J., Pluess M.. Beyond diathesis stress: Differential susceptibility to environmental influences. Psychological Bulletin. 2009 ; 135: 885-908
6. Bora E., Murat Y., Pantelis C.. Theory of mind impairment in schizophrenia: Meta-analysis. Schizophrenia Research. 2009 ; 109: 1-9
7. Brass M., Ruby P., Spengler S.. Inhibition of imitative behaviour and social cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2009 ; 364: 2359-2367
8. Carrington S. J., Bailey A. J.. Are there theory of mind regions in the brain? A review of the neuroimaging literature. Human Brain Mapping. 2009 ; 30: 2313-2335
9. Carruthers P. Theories of theories of mind. Carruthers P. Smith P. K., ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press ; 1996 :
10. Cheng Y., Lin C., Liu H. L., Hsu Y., Lim K., Hung D., Decety J.. Expertise modulates the perception of pain in others. Current Biology. 2007 ; 17: 1708-1713
11. Ciaramidaro A., Adenzato M., Enrici I., Erk S., Pia L., Bara B. G., Walter H.. The intentional network. How the brain reads varieties of intention. Neuropsychologia. 2007 ; 45: 3105-3113
12. Craig A. D.. How do you feel-now? The anterior insula and human awareness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2009 ; 10: 59-70
13. Danziger N., Faillenot I., Peyron R.. Can we share a pain we never felt? Neural correlates of empathy in patients with congenital insensitivity to pain. Neuron. 2008 ; 61: 203-212
14. Decety J.. To what extent is the experience of empathy mediated by shared neural circuits?. Emotion Review. 2010 ; 2: 204-207
15. Decety J., Ickes W. The social neuroscience of empathy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press ; 2009 :
16. Dinstein I., Hasson U., Rubin N., Heeger D. J.. Brain areas selective for both observed and executed movements. Journal of Neurophysiology. 2007 ; 98: 1415-1427
17. Domes G., Heinrichs M., Michel A., Berger C., Herpertz S. C.. Oxytocin improves "mind-reading" in humans. Biological Psychiatry. 2007 ; 61: 731-733
18. Donaldson Z. R., Young L. J.. Oxytocin, vasopressin, and the neurogenetics of sociality. Science. 2008 ; 322: 900-904
19. Dziobek I., Rogers K., Fleck S., Bahnemann M., Heekeren H. R., Wolf O. T., Convit A.. Dissociation of cognitive and emotional empathy in adults with Asperger syndrome using the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 2008 ; 38: 464-473
20. Ebstein R. P., Israel S., Chew S. H., Zhong S., Knafo A.. Genetics of human social behavior. Neuron. 2010 ; 65: 831-844
21. Esslinger C., Walter H., Kirsch P., Erk S., Schnell K., Arnold C., Meyer-Lindenberg A.. Genome-wide significant neurogenetic risk mechanisms for psychosis. Science. 2009 ; 324: 605
22. Fan Y., Duncan N. W., de Greck M., Northoff G.. Is there a core neural network in empathy? An fMRI based quantitative meta-analysis. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. 2011 ; 35: 903-911
23. Gallagher H. L., Frith C. D.. Functional imaging of "theory of mind.". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2003 ; 7: 77-83
24. Gallese V.. The "shared manifold" hypothesis: From mirror neurons to empathy. Journal of Consciousness Studies. 2001 ; 8: 33-50
25. Gallese V., Fadiga L., Fogassi L., Rizzolatti G.. Action recognition in the premotor cortex. Brain. 1996 ; 119: 593-609
26. Goldman A. Simulating minds: The philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience of mindreading. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press ; 2006 :
27. Hein G., Silani G., Preuschoff K., Batson D., Singer T.. Neural responses to ingroup and outgroup members' suffering predict individual differences in costly helping. Neuron. 2010 ; 48: 149-160
28. Hickok G.. Eight problems for the mirror neuron theory of action understanding in monkeys and humans. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2009 ; 7: 1229-1243
29. Hurleman R., Patin A., Onur O. A., Cohen M. X., Baumgartner T., Metzler S., Kendrick K. M.. Oxytocin enhances amygdala-dependent, socially reinforced learning and emotional empathy in humans. Journal of Neuroscience. 2010 ; 30: 4999-5007
30. Hynes C. A., Baird A. A., Grafton S. T.. Differential role of the orbital frontal lobe in emotional versus cognitive perspective-taking. Neuropsychologia. 2006 ; 44: 374-383
31. Insel T. R.. The challenge of translation in social neuroscience: A review of oxytocin, vasopressin, and affiliative behavior. Neuron. 2010 ; 65: 768-779
32. Jackson P. L., Meltzoff A. N., Decety J.. How do we perceive the pain of others? A window into the neural processes involved in empathy. NeuroImage. 2005 ; 24: 771-779
33. Knafo A., Uzefovsky F. The developing infant mind. Legerstee M. Haley D. W. Bornstein M. H., ed. New York, NY: Guilford Press ;
34. Knafo A., Zahn-Waxler C., Davidov M., van Hulle C., Robinson J. L., Rhee S. H.. Empathy in early childhood: Genetic, environmental, and affective contributions. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 2009 ; 1167: 103-114
35. Knafo A., Zahn-Waxler C., van Hulle C., Robinson J. L., Rhee S. H.. The developmental origins of a disposition toward empathy: Genetic and environmental contributions. Emotion. 2008 ; 8: 737-752
36. Lamm C., Batson C. D., Decety J.. The neural substrate of human empathy: Effects of perspective taking and cognitive appraisal. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2007 ; 19: 42-58
37. Lamm C., Decety J., Singer T.. Meta-analytic evidence for common and distinct neural networks associated with directly experienced pain and empathy for pain. NeuroImage. 2011 ; 54: 2492-2502
38. Lamm C., Meltzoff A. N., Decety J.. How do we empathize with someone who is not like us? A functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2010 ; 22: 362-376
39. LeDoux J. The emotional brain. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster ; 1996 :
40. Meyer-Lindenberg A., Weinberger D. R.. Intermediate phenotypes and genetic mechanisms of psychiatric disorders. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2006 ; 7: 818-827
41. O'Donovan M. C., Craddock N., Norton N., Williams H., Peirce T., Moskvina V., Cloninger C. R.. Identification of loci associated with schizophrenia by genome-wide association and follow-up. Nature Genetics. 2008 ; 40: 1053-1055
42. Preston S. D., Bechara A., Damasio H., Grabowski T. J., Stansfield R. B., Mehta S., Damasio A. R.. The neural substrates of cognitive empathy. Social Neuroscience. 2007 ; 2: 254-275
43. Preston S. D., de Waal F.. Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 2002 ; 25: 1-72
44. Rizzolatti G., Craighero L.. The mirror neuron system. Annual Review of Neuroscience. 2004 ; 27: 169-192
45. Rizzolatti G., Sinigaglia C.. The functional role of the parieto-frontal mirror circuit: Interpretations and misinterpretations. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2010 ; 11: 264-274
46. Robinson G. E., Fernald R. D., Clayton D. F.. Genes and social behavior. Science. 2010 ; 322: 896-900
47. Rodrigues S. M., Saslow L. R., Garcia N., John O. P., Keltner D.. Oxytocin receptor genetic variation relates to empathy and stress reactivity in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2009 ; 106: 21437-21441
48. Saxe R.. Uniquely human social cognition. Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 2006 ; 16: 235-239
49. Saxe R., Wexler A.. Making sense of another mind: The role of the right temporo-parietal junction. Neuropsychologia. 2005 ; 43: 1391-1399
50. Schilbach L., Eickhoff S. B., Rotarska-Jagiela A., Fink G. R., Vogeley K.. Minds at rest? Social cognition as the default mode of cognizing and its putative relationship to the "default system" of the brain. Consciousness and Cognition. 2008 ; 17: 457-467
51. Schnell K., Bluschke S., Konradt B., Walter H.. Functional relations of empathy and mentalizing: An fMRI study on the neural basis of cognitive empathy. NeuroImage. 2011 ; 54: 1743-1754
52. Shamay-Tsoory S. G., Aharon-Peretz J.. Dissociable prefrontal networks for cognitive and affective theory of mind: A lesion study. Neuropsychologia. 2007 ; 45: 3054-3067
53. Shamay-Tsoory S. G., Aharon-Peretz J., Perry D.. Two systems for empathy: A double dissociation between emotional and cognitive empathy in inferior frontal gyrus versus ventromedial prefrontal lesions. Brain. 2009 ; 132: 617-627
54. Singer T., Lamm C.. The social neuroscience of empathy. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 2009 ; 1156: 81-96
55. Singer T., Seymour B., O'Doherty J., Kaube H., Dolan R. J., Frith C. D.. Empathy for pain involves the affective but not the sensory components of pain. Science. 2004 ; 303: 1157-1161
56. Sprong M., Schothorst P., Vos E., Hox J., van Engeland H.. Theory of mind in schizophrenia: Meta-analysis. British Journal of Psychiatry. 2007 ; 191: 5-13
57. Steinberg S., Mors O., Borglum A. D., Gustafsson O., Werge T., Mortensen P. B., Stefansson K.. Expanding the range of ZNF804A variants conferring risk of psychosis. Molecular Psychiatry. 2011 ; 16: 59-66
58. Völlm B. A., Taylor A. N. W., Richardson P., Corcoran R., Stirling J., McKie S., Elliott R.. Neuronal correlates of theory of mind and empathy: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study in a nonverbal task. Neuroimage. 2006 ; 29: 90-98
59. Walter H., Adenzato M., Ciaramidaro A., Enrici I., Pia L., Bara B. G.. Understanding intentions in social interaction: The role of the anterior paracingulate cortex. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2004 ; 16: 1854-1863
60. Walter H., Ciaramidaro A., Adenzato M., Vasic N., Arditto R. B., Erk S., Bara B. G.. Dysfunction of the social brain in schizophrenia is modulated by intention type: An fMRI study. SCAN. 2009 ; 4: 166-176
61. Walter H., Schnell K., Erk S., Arnold C., Kirsch P., Esslinger C., Meyer-Lindenberg A.. Effects of a genome-wide supported psychosis risk variant on neural activation during a theory-of-mind task. Molecular Psychiatry. 2011 ; 16: 462-470
62. Wicker B., Keysers C., Plailly J., Royet J.-P., Gallese V., Rizzolatti G.. Both of us disgusted in my insula: The common neural basis of seeing and feeling disgust. Neuron. 2003 ; 40: 655-664
63. Yamada M., Decety J.. Unconscious affective processing and empathy: An investigation of subliminal priming on the detection of painful facial expressions. Pain. 2009 ; 143: 71-75