Abstract:
Empathy is not only the capacity to share and understand others’ feeling and emotions, but it is a multilayered phenomenon in which emotions and cognitive processes are simultaneously at work and influence each other. At the basis of empathic responses among several animal species, including humans, there is an emotional response that is shared between two or more individuals. This phenomenon mainly relies on an action-perception mechanism, which not only involves sensorimotor cortical regions (part of the so called ‘mirror neuron network’) but also brain regions, which are involved in processing visceromotor responses and reward value associated to emotions, such as the anterior insula, the anterior cingulate cortex and the basolateral amygdala. It has been proposed that this is an important brain network in primates that is involved in emotional communication and empathic responses.
From an ethological perspective, there are several examples of action-perception mechanisms at work during spontaneous interactions among individuals. I will illustrate some of these phenomena in which the observation of a behavior triggers a matched response with a strong activation of the autonomic system, both in infancy and childhood. We recently found that children with congenital deficits of mimic facial muscles (Moebius syndrome) have impairments not only in the capacity to recognize correctly others’ emotions but also in the capacity to activate the typical physiological responses associated with specific emptions.
Thus, these forms of emotional contagion demonstrate that in highly social species the tuning and synchrony of emotional responses are central in regulating social interaction through empathic responses. From a developmental perspective empathy emerge very early in the form of mimic responses of facialexpressions and in the activation of shared emotional responses. Infants showed a readiness to detect when being imitated by the caregivers. Mothers respond highly selectively to infant social cues by mirroring them and positively marking their occurrence with salient signals (e.g., smiles, eyebrow flashes). Such parental responses appear to be largely intuitive. Other species of primates demonstrate similar capacities suggesting a universality of such exchanges among primates with a high functional value in regulating own emotions and in developing sensitivity to others’ emotional state.
Lack of these early experiences has been shown to lead to detrimental changes in neural activity of the mirror neuron system and to deficits in social and cognitive functions, and ultimately to empathy. Early interventions aimed at promoting face-to-face interactions have been shown to have long-lasting effects in the capacity of infant macaque to respond and cope with the social environment later in life. Studies in humans showed that these interactions are important, as they provide the foundations for emotion regulation and cognition, and they already show effects of parental and infant clinical conditions that predict functioning into adolescence and beyond.
Biography:
Pier Francesco Ferrari is director of research at the Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, CNRS, Lyon, France, and his research focus is on the neural bases of social behavior and emotions, and the related psychological and developmental processes in human and nonhuman primates. During his Ph.D he conducted his research between the University of Parma, Italy, the University of London and the University of Leeds in UK. Soon after his Ph.D, he became a post-doc fellow atTufts University in Boston, USA. On his return, he joined the team led by Giacomo Rizzolatti in Parma investigating the role of mirror neurons in emotional communication and intention. His current research focuses on the neurophysiology of social cognition in human and nonhuman primates, primarily focusing on the role of action-perception mechanisms in social behavior and emotional communication. Interdisciplinary research characterizes his work. In more recent years his interests have been focused on brain development and plasticity in relation to the emergence of cognitive and social skills in both humans and monkeys. Other research lines concern the investigation of the motor system in children affected by cerebral palsy, more specifically children with Moebius Syndrome, which involves the incapability to move facial mimic muscles. His main research lines take advantage of several methodological approaches: depth multielectrode recordings of single neurons, multiunit and LFP, high-density EEG, thermal imaging, Tobii automated eye-tracking assessments in neonates. His current research is funded mainly by the National Institutes of Health, USA, the University of Lyon 1, Fondation de France, and the Italian Ministry of Health.
Neuroeconomics Colloquium Series by the NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai