Pain and empathy: Exploring cognitive, physiological and neural foundations of social aspects of pain

我们如何能同情别人的不幸和痛苦？这个问题是社会科学中的一个基本问题，也是当代的一个关键问题，从自然灾害到我们社会中的经济差距。本研究旨在建立一个概念框架，作为跨学科方法研究疼痛的社会方面的共同基础。我们首先回顾了关于疼痛体验的各种实验和实地研究，并提取了生理疼痛社会方面的几个关键维度。然后，我们进行了一系列实验，结合行为，认知，生理以及脑成像测量，以解决其近似机制。结果表明，人类参与者甚至可以在生理水平上根据移情他人所处的特定身体状况适当地调整移情反应的水平。

How can we empathize with other's misfortune and pain? This question is a fundamental problem in social sciences as well as a key contemporary issue ranging from natural disasters to economic disparities in our society. This study aimed to develop a conceptual framework which serves as a common basis for interdisciplinary approaches examining social aspects of pain. We first reviewed various experimental as well as field studies about pain experiences and extracted several key dimensions that underlie the social aspects of physical pain. We then conducted a series of experiments that combined behavioral, cognitive, physiological as well as a brain-imaging measurements to address their proximate mechanisms. The results showed that human participants could adjust levels of empathetic responses properly even at the physiological level in line with specific physical condition where the empathized other was situated.