Sharing the Emotions of Others: The Neural Bases of Empathy

Abstract

With the emergence of social neuroscience, researchers have started to investigate our ability, known as empathy, to share other people's feelings. After defining empathy and delineating the difference between empathy and related concepts such as sympathy, cognitive perspective taking, and emotional contagion, we present a neuroscientific account of empathy and provide both peripheral and central neurophysiological evidence for it. We then discuss the central role of insular cortex in interoceptive awareness and empathy as well as in pathological conditions such as autism or alexithymia. After that, we show that the amplitude of empathic brain responses is modulated not only by dispositional factors, but also by contextual factors such as the attitude toward the other person or the appraisal of the situation. We conclude the chapter with suggestions for future research.