Neurodevelopmental changes in the circuits underlying empathy and sympathy from childhood to adulthood
Neurodevelopmental changes in the circuits underlying empathy and sympathy from childhood to adulthood
复制标题
DOI：
10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00940.x
复制
发表时间：
2010-11-01
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Michalska, Kalina J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Decety, Jean;Michalska, Kalina J.
同理心和同情心在人类社会互动中起着至关重要的作用，是健康共存的必要组成部分。同情被认为是激发亲社会行为的代理人，并为道德发展提供情感和动机基础。本研究的目的是使用功能性磁共振成像来表征大脑激活的神经回路的发展变化的同情和同情的基础。五十七个人，其年龄范围从7岁到40岁，提出了简短的动画视觉刺激描绘痛苦和非痛苦的情况。这些情况涉及一个人的痛苦是意外造成的，或者一个人的痛苦是由另一个人故意造成的，以引起移情（感觉像他者）或同情（感觉关心他者）的情绪。结果表明，当参与者暴露于意外引起的疼痛情况下时，杏仁核，辅助运动区和后丘脑的单调年龄相关变化。当参与者观察到另一个人故意造成的痛苦情况时，在背外侧前额叶和腹内侧前额叶皮层中检测到与年龄相关的变化，后一个区域从内侧逐渐转移到外侧。这种激活模式反映了从分析刺激的情感意义的关键内脏情绪反应到更具评价性功能的变化。此外，这些数据提供了证据，部分不同的神经机制subserving同情和同情，并证明了有用的发展神经生物学方法的新兴领域的道德神经科学。
Empathy and sympathy play crucial roles in much of human social interaction and are necessary components for healthy coexistence. Sympathy is thought to be a proxy for motivating prosocial behavior and providing the affective and motivational base for moral development. The purpose of the present study was to use functional MRI to characterize developmental changes in brain activation in the neural circuits underpinning empathy and sympathy. Fifty-seven individuals, whose age ranged from 7 to 40 years old, were presented with short animated visual stimuli depicting painful and non-painful situations. These situations involved either a person whose pain was accidentally caused or a person whose pain was intentionally inflicted by another individual to elicit empathic (feeling as the other) or sympathetic (feeling concern for the other) emotions, respectively. Results demonstrate monotonic age-related changes in the amygdala, supplementary motor area, and posterior insula when participants were exposed to painful situations that were accidentally caused. When participants observed painful situations intentionally inflicted by another individual, age-related changes were detected in the dorsolateral prefrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, with a gradual shift in that latter region from its medial to its lateral portion. This pattern of activation reflects a change from a visceral emotional response critical for the analysis of the affective significance of stimuli to a more evaluative function. Further, these data provide evidence for partially distinct neural mechanisms subserving empathy and sympathy, and demonstrate the usefulness of a developmental neurobiological approach to the new emerging area of moral neuroscience.