Summary of Jean Decety’s The Neuroevolution of Empathy

1. Summary of Jean Decety’s The Neuroevolution of Empathy By: Jen Ruiz

2. Defining Empathy • Empathy: feelings of concern for others, experiencing emotion that match another individuals, knowing what others are thinking/feeling, or blurring the line between self and others. • Three components to empathy • Affective • Cognitive • Behavioral *Due to this complexity, it is difficult to measure all components of empathy in the same study.

3. Human Empathy • Not restricted to kin • Does not require prompting by actual perception of distress or emotional contagion • Can extend to strangers and across species

4. Empathy is not limited to the cortex, but includes the brainstem, ANS, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and the endocrine system

5. Key Concepts • Examination of how empathy evolved in the context of parental care in mammals • Neurological mechanisms that underlie empathy

6. Neurological Mechanisms • For basis affective states, are homologous in all mammals (genetically hardwired) • Evolved for differentiating hostile vs hospitable stimuli and organizing the adaptive response • Architecture maps onto neural circuitry of the limbic system: hypothalamus, parahippocampal cortex, amygdala, and inter-connected areas (septum, basal ganglia, nucleus accumbens, anterior insular cortex, and retrospenial cingulate cortex) • Limbic regions then project to the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortex for evaluation of emotion as well as decision-making • Evidence for partial independent circuitry for positive or negative stimuli, supported by opposing roles of DA and Ach in the striatum for GABA output (avoidance or approach)

7. Basic affect circuits emerge earlier than higher cognitive function • Social species care for offspring longer need to respond to emotional expression of hunger, pain, distress, or fear • Presence of some aspects of empathy in other mammals

8. Mammalian Parental Care • The nucleus accumbens is critical for attachment and maternal behavior • Neuropeptides like oxytocin, opiods, and prolactin, regulate empathetic responsiveness • Oxytocin facilitates maternal behavior, increases prosocial behavior, and reduces activity in areas associated with separation anxiety • OC nasal spray reduces social stress, can increase mutual trust, reduces amygdala activity and modulates its coupling brainstem regions involved in fear, and contributes to detection of facial expression. • Attachment security leads to more empathetic responses

9. Pain not only warns but attract attention • Mice study: Females will approach a familiar female in pain more often than a familiar female or a strange female in pain • Mother’s listening to crying babies show increased activity in the medial thalamus, insula, ACC, and OFC as well as rodent maternal structures like the midbrain, hypothalamus, striatum, and lateral septum

10. fMRI Studies • Pain circuit is also emulated anticipation, perception or imagination • Activation of te anterior insular cortex serve to compute a higher order meta-representation • Plays a role in learning and adaptation of prosocial behavior, guiding decision-making • To be motivated to help another, one needs to be empathetically aroused • Empathetic response is more sensitive to: • Loved ones • Circumstances surrounding pain • Prior interactions • Ethnic groups • Knowledge and experience of pain

11. Knowledge and Experience With Pain Neuroimaging study Event-related potientials Same conditions Controls show early response to pain/no pain differentiation No ERP response for physicians Frees up cognitive resources for being of assistance • Subjects shown videos of others being pricked by needles • Controls show activation of pain matrix • Physicians show activation of cortical regions for executive functions and attention, no activation of pain matrix

12. Can Empathy Be Selfish? • Reinforcement by the DA system to the nucleus accumbens • Feedback from others • Reward network engaged when receiving monetary reward or voluntary donation of money • Presence of observers increases donation rates and significantly affects activity in striatal regions

13. How does this relate to Haidt? The concept that evolution has hardwired us with mechanisms for basic empathy. The basic mechanisms have been built upon, evolving into much more complex circuits that are plastic and subject to individual environment and experience.