Nodes of the default mode network implicated in the quality of empathic responses: a clinical perspective of the empathic response

• Patrícia Oliveira-Silva ^[1] ; Liliana Maia ^[2] ; Joana Coutinho ^[2] ; Ana Filipa Moreno ^[1] ; Lucia Penalba ^[1] ; Brandon Frank ^[3] ; José Miguel Soares ^[2] ; Adriana Sampaio ^[2] ; Óscar F. Gonçalves ^[4]
  1. [1] Universidade Católica Portuguesa

     Universidade Católica Portuguesa

     Socorro, Portugal

     
  2. [2] Universidade do Minho

     Universidade do Minho

     Braga (São José de São Lázaro), Portugal

     
  3. [3] Fordham University

     Fordham University

     Estados Unidos

     
  4. [4] Universidade de Coimbra

     Universidade de Coimbra

     Coimbra (Sé Nova), Portugal

     

  Mostrar afiliaciones +
• Localización: International journal of clinical and health psychology, ISSN 1697-2600, Vol. 23, Nº. 1, 2023, págs. 41-50
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijchp.2022.100319
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Dialnet Métricas: 1 Cita
• Resumen

  • The ability to empathize with another person's inner experience is believed to be a central element of our social interactions. Previous research has focused on cognitive (e.g., theory of mind) and emotional (e.g., emotional contagion) empathy, and less on behavioral factors (i.e., the ability to respond empathically). Recent studies suggest that the Default Mode Network (DMN) mediates individual variability in distinct empathy-related behaviors. However, little is known about DMN activity during actual empathic responses, understood in this study as the ability to communicate our understanding of the others’ experience back to them. This study used an empathy response paradigm with 28 participants (22-37 years old) to analyze the relationship between the quality of empathic responses to 14 empathy-eliciting vignettes and patterns of attenuation in the DMN. Overall, the results suggest that high levels of empathic response, are associated with sustained activation of the DMN when compared with lower levels of empathy. Our results demonstrate that the DMN becomes increasingly involved in empathy-related behavior, as our level of commitment to the other's experience increases. This study represents a first attempt to understand the relation between the capacity for responding in a supportive way to others’ needs and the intra-individual variability of the pattern of the DMN attenuation. Here we underline the critical role that the DMN plays in high-level social cognitive processes and corroborate the DMN role in different psychiatric disorders associated with a lack of empathy.

• Referencias bibliográficas
  • Almgren, H., Van de Steen, F., K€uhn, S., Razi, A., Friston, K., & Marinazzo, D. (2018). Variability and reliability of effective connectivity...
  • Bar, M. (2009). The proactive brain: Memory for predictions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1521),...
  • Batson, C. D., Sager, K., Garst, E., Kang, M., Rubchinsky, K., & Dawson, K. (1997). Is empathy-induced helping due to self-other merging?...
  • Bilevicius, E., Kolesar, T. A., Smith, S. D., Trapnell, P. D., & Kornelsen, J. (2018). Trait emotional empathy and resting state functional...
  • Britton, J. C., Phan, K. L., Taylor, S. F., Welsh, R. C., Berridge, K. C., & Liberzon, I. (2006). Neural correlates of social and nonsocial...
  • Buckner, R. L., & DiNicola, L. M. (2019). The brain’s default network: Updated anatomy, physiology and evolving insights. Nature Reviews...
  • Buckner, R. L. (2012). The serendipitous discovery of the brain’s default network. Neuroimage, 62(2), 1137–1145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.10.035.
  • Buckner, R. L., Andrews-Hanna, J., & Schacter, D. (2008). The Brain’s Default Network. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1124(1),...
  • Buckner, R. L., & Carroll, D. (2007). Self-projection and the brain. Trends in cognitive sciences, 11(2), 49–57.
  • Calhoun, V. D., Wager, T. D., Krishnan, A., Rosch, K. S., Seymour, K. E., Nebel, M. B.,, . . . Kiehl, K. (2017). The impact of T1 versus...
  • Carkhuff, R. R. (1969). Helping and human relations: A primer for lay and professional helpers: Vol. 1. Selection and training. New York:...
  • Cavanna, A. E., & Trimble, M. R. (2006). The precuneus: A review of its functional anatomy and behavioural correlates. Brain, 129 (3),...
  • Chiou, R., Humphreys, G. F., & Lambon Ralph, M. A. (2020). Bipartite functional fractionation within the default network supports disparate...
  • Coutinho, J. F., Sampaio, A., Ferreira, M., Soares, J. M., & Gonçalves, O. F. (2013). Brain correlates of pro-social personality traits:...
  • Cox, C. L., Uddin, L. Q., Di Martino, A., Castellanos, F. X., Milham, M. P., & Kelly, C. (2012). The balance between feeling and knowing:...
  • D’Argembeau, A., Ruby, P., Collette, F., Degueldre, C., Balteau, E., Luxen, A., . . . Salmon, E. (2007). Distinct regions of the medial prefrontal...
  • Decety, J., & Cowell, J. M. (2015). Empathy, justice, and moral behavior. AJOB Neuroscience, 6(3), 3–14.
  • Decety, J., & Svetlova, M. (2012). Putting together phylogenetic and ontogenetic perspectives on empathy. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience,...
  • Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., Guthrie, I. K., & Reiser, M. (2000). Dispositional emotionality and regulation: Their role in predicting...
  • Fox, M. D., & Raichle, M. E. (2007). Spontaneous fluctuations in brain activity observed with functional magnetic resonance imaging....
  • Frith, U., & Frith, C. D. (2003). Development and neurophysiology of mentalizing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London....
  • Grabner, G., Poser, B. A., Fujimoto, K., Polimeni, J. R., Wald, L. L., Trattnig, S., & Barth, M. (2014). A study-specific fMRI normalization...
  • Greicius, M. D., Krasnow, B., Reiss, A. L., & Menon, V. (2003). Functional connectivity in the resting brain: A network analysis of the...
  • Gusnard, D. A., Akbudak, E., Shulman, G. L., & Raichle, M. E. (2001). Medial prefrontal cortex and self-referential mental activity:...
  • Gusnard, D. A., & Raichle, M. E. (2001). Searching for a baseline: Functional imaging and the resting human brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience,...
  • Howick, J., Bizzari, V., & Dambha-Miller, H. (2018). Therapeutic empathy: What it is and what it isn’t. Journal of the Royal Society of...
  • Huang, C. M., Lee, S. H., Hsiao, T., Kuan, W. C., Wai, Y. Y., Ko, H. J., . . . Liu, H. L. (2010). Study-specific EPI template improves group...
  • Iacoboni, M., Lieberman, M. D., Knowlton, B. J., Molnar-Szakacs, I., Moritz, M., Throop, C. J., & Fiske, A. P. (2004). Watching social...
  • Ickes, W. J. (1997). Empathic accuracy. New York: Guilford Press.
  • Ivey, A., Ivey, M., & Zalaquett, C. (2013). Intentional interviewing and counseling: Facilitating client development in a multicultural...
  • Jackson, P. L., Brunet, E., Meltzoff, A. N., & Decety, J. (2006). Empathy examined through the neural mechanisms involved in imagining...
  • Lamm, C., Decety, J., & Singer, T. (2011). Meta-analytic evidence for common and distinct neural networks associated with directly experienced...
  • Lamm, C., R€utgen, M., & Wagner, I. C. (2019). Imaging empathy and prosocial emotions. Neuroscience Letters, 693, 49–53.
  • Li, W., Mai, X., & Liu, C. (2014). The default mode network and social understanding of others: What do brain connectivity studies tell...
  • Mars, R. B., Neubert, F.-X., Noonan, M. P., Sallet, J., Toni, I., & Rushworth, M. F. (2012). On the relationship between the “default...
  • Mendez, M. F., & Perryman, K. M. (2003). Disrupted facial empathy in drawings from artists with frontotemporal dementia. Neurocase, 9(1),...
  • Meyer, M. L., Spunt, R. P., Berkman, E. T., Taylor, S. E., & Lieberman, M. D. (2012). Evidence for social working memory from a parametric...
  • Nierhaus, T., Schön, T., Becker, R., Ritter, P., & Villringer, A. (2009). Background and evoked activity and their interaction in the...
  • Oldfield, R. C. (1971). The assessment and analysis of handedness: The Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia, 9(1), 97–113.
  • Oliveira-Silva, P., & Gonçalves, �O. F. (2011). Responding empathically: A question of heart, not a question of skin. Applied Psychophysiology...
  • Prehn-Kristensen, A., Wiesner, C., Bergmann, T. O., Wolff, S., Jansen, O., Mehdorn, H. M., & Pause, B. M. (2009). Induction of empathy...
  • Raichle, M. E., & Gusnard, D. A. (2005). Intrinsic brain activity sets the stage for expression of motivated behavior. Journal of Comparative...
  • Raichle, M. E., MacLeod, A. M., Snyder, A. Z., Powers, W. J., Gusnard, D. A., & Shulman, G. L. (2001). A Default Mode of Brain Function....
  • Rogers, C. R. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 95–103.
  • Ruby, P., & Decety, J. (2004). How would you feel versus how do you think she would feel? A neuroimaging study of perspective-taking...
  • Sampaio, A., Soares, J. M., Coutinho, J., Sousa, N., & Gonçalves, O. F. (2014). The Big Five default brain: Functional evidence. Brain...
  • Schilbach, L., Eickhoff, S. B., Rotarska-Jagiela, A., Fink, G. R., & Vogeley, K. (2008). Minds at rest? Social cognition as the default...
  • Seger, C. A., Stone, M., & Keenan, J. P. (2004). Cortical activations during judgments about the self and an other person. Neuropsychologia,...
  • Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., Aharon-Peretz, J., & Perry, D. (2009). Two systems for empathy: A double dissociation between emotional and cognitive...
  • Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., Lester, H., Chisin, R., Israel, O., Bar-Shalom, R., Peretz, A., & Aharon-Peretz, J. (2005). The neural correlates...
  • Sheline, Y. I., Barch, D. M., Price, J. L., Rundle, M. M., Vaishnavi, S. N., Snyder, A. Z., & Raichle, M. E. (2009). The default mode...
  • Shulman, G. L., Fiez, J. A., Corbetta, M., Buckner, R. L., Miezin, F. M., Raichle, M. E., & Petersen, S. E. (1997). Common blood flow...
  • Spreng, R. N. (2012). The fallacy of a “task-negative” network. Frontiers in Psychology, 3.
  • Spreng, R. N., & Grady, C. L. (2010). Patterns of brain activity supporting autobiographical memory, prospection, and theory of mind,...
  • Tan, L., Le, M. K., Yu, C. C., et al. (2021). Defining clinical empathy: A grounded theory approach from the perspective of healthcare workers...
  • Tholen, M. G., Trautwein, F. M., B€ockler, A., Singer, T., & Kanske, P. (2020). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) item analysis...
  • Tone, E. B., & Tully, E. C. (2014). Empathy as a “risky strength”: A multilevel examination of empathy and risk for internalizing disorders....
  • Vincent, J. L., Snyder, A. Z., Fox, M. D., Shannon, B. J., Andrews, J. R., Raichle, M. E., & Buckner, R. L. (2006). Coherent spontaneous...
  • Wicker, B., Ruby, P., Royet, J.-P., & Fonlupt, P. (2003). A relation between rest and the self in the brain? Brain Research Reviews,...
  • Yeshurun, Y., Nguyen, M., & Hasson, U. (2021). The default mode network: Where the idiosyncratic self meets the shared social world....
  • Yue, T., Zhao, J., & Fu, A. (2021). Amplitude of Low-Frequency Fluctuations and Resting-State Functional Connectivity in Trait Positive...