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421379
EMR
Emotion Review
Vol. 4, No. 1 (January 2012) 917
The Author(s) 2012
ISSN 1754-0739
DOI: 10.1177/1754073911421379
er.sagepub.com
Henrik Walter
Abstract
This article reviews concepts of, as well as neurocognitive and genetic studies on, empathy. Whereas cognitive empathy can
be equated with affective theory of mind, that is, with mentalizing the emotions of others, affective empathy is about sharing
emotions with others. The neural circuits underlying different forms of empathy do overlap but also involve rather specific brain
areas for cognitive (ventromedial prefrontal cortex) and affective (anterior insula, midcingulate cortex, and possibly inferior frontal
gyrus) empathy. Furthermore, behavioral and imaging genetic studies provide evidence for a genetic basis for empathy, indicating
a possible role for oxytocin and dopamine as well as for a genetic risk variant for schizophrenia near the gene ZNF804A.
Keywords
empathy, genetics, imaging genetics, theory of mind
Corresponding author: Henrik Walter, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Charit Universittsmedizin Berlin, Campus Mitte,
Charitplatz 1, D-10117 Berlin, Germany. Email: henrik.walter@charite.de
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Note. The figure shows a suggestion for the decomposition of empathy and related concepts into their constituting subcomponents.
Figure 1. Brain circuits for empathy and theory of mind (ToM). The
affective state of another can elicit activations in the observer either
by bottomup affective signals (low road) or by topdown cognitive
information on content and context (high road). The large rectangle
depicts schematically the brain of the observing self and the small
rectangles depict neural networks that have some specificity for the
types of mental processes in the upper part. However, as indicated by the
arrows between the small rectangles, these systems can be coactivated,
as, for example, shown by the recruitment of the cognitive ToM system in
cue-based elicitation of empathy for pain.
Note. TPJ: temporo-parietal junction; STS: superior temporal sulcus; dmPFC: dorsomedial prefrontal cortex; PMC: posteromedial cortex (i.e., precuneus, posterior
cingulated, and medial superior parietal cortex); vmPFC: ventromedial prefrontal
cortex; AI: anterior insula; mCC: midcingulate cortex; AMY: amygdala; SII: secondary
somatosensory cortex; IFG: inferior frontal gyrus.
found quite convincing evidence that the right TPJ is the most
specific region for representing the mental state of others (Saxe
& Wexler, 2005). These authors have argued that the role of the
medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) in ToM is more general,
namely that it is involved in presenting triadic relations, for
instance, an observer, an observed and an object (Saxe, 2006).
Another suggestion is that the TPJ and the dmPFC are differentially involved in the aspect of selfother distinction (Brass,
Ruby, & Spengler, 2009) in mentalizing situations. Whereas the
TPJ is important for agency attribution, that is, in attributing an
observed action to the other and not the self, the dmPFC is
thought to be required to enforce ones own motor intention
against an externally triggered response tendency. This idea
also links mirror system theory and mentalizing.
There are now several imaging studies investigating cognitive empathy (Hynes, Baird, & Grafton, 2006; Preston et al.,
2007; Schnell, Bluschke, Konradt, & Walter, 2011; Vllm et al.,
2006; Walter et al., 2011). In general these studies find activation of the ToM network when mentalizing about emotions plus
activation of areas that are related to affective processing, for
example, the amygdala or the vmPFC. In our own work we have
used a cartoon paradigm in which the characters depicted had
no mouth and showed no affective eye signals (Schnell et al.,
2011; Walter et al., 2011). This ensured that subjects had to use
the high road to cognitive empathy. The stories consisted of
three consecutive pictures developing a story around a protagonist. After the second and third pictures, a question was asked
about the change of either the number of living beings or the
affective state from either ones own perspective or the perspective of the cartoons protagonist. Thus, basically the study had a
2 2 design with self/other and cognitive/affective as factors.
The results were as follows: Mentalizing about the emotions of
the other compared to mentalizing about cognitions of the other
showed higher activation in the anterior part of the mentalizing
network (dmPFC, bilateral STS, bilateral temporal poles) as
well as in limbic areas like the left amygdala, the left hippocampus, and the left posterior cingulate gyrus. In posterior
regions of the mentalizing network only one small cluster in the
left TPJ showed higher activation for affective mentalizing content. Higher activation was also observed in bilateral inferior
frontal gyri and left ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Note that
the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is part of the human mirror neuron system. The vmPFC is an important relay station between
cognitive and affective processing.
The role of both the IFG and vmPFC for empathy has
recently been investigated in two lesion studies. Shamay-Tsoory
and Aharon-Peretz (2007) investigated 49 patients with different types of brain lesions (ventromedial PFC, dorsolateral PFC,
mixed, posterior cortex) for cognitive ToM and affective ToM
(in our terminology: cognitive empathy) using two different
tasks. The first was a false-belief task in a cognitive and an
affective (irony) version. In the other task, subjects had to judge
by eye gaze and facial expression of Yoni (a cartoon picture
of a face) what Yoni was either thinking of or feeling about
objects and people around her. They found subjects with lesions
in the vmPFC to be specifically impaired in affective ToM
General Conclusion
Empathy has become a hot topic in social cognitive neuroscience over the last decade. We have seen that different concepts
of empathy can be defined and have to be differentiated from
other affective phenomena like emotional contagion or compassion. A widely used distinction is made between affective
and cognitive empathy with the latter being identical with mentalizing about emotions, that is, affective theory of mind. From
a neurobiological point of view three neural systems play a
major role in empathy: the mirror neuron system, an affective
empathy system centered on the anterior insula and midcingulate cortex, and the mentalizing system. A link between cognitive and affective empathy is provided by the ventromedial
prefrontal cortex. First neurogenetic studies suggest an involvement of some candidate genes in the genetic foundations of
empathy, related to oxytocin and dopamine and a gene of
unknown function associated with schizophrenia, ZNF804A.
Although some core regions can be associated more strongly
with affective and cognitive empathy, respectively, it seems that
the natural blend of different types of empathy is reflected in
partially overlapping networks.
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