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Neural dynamics between anterior insular cortex and right supramarginal gyrus dissociate genuine affect sharing from automatic responses to pretended pain

View ORCID ProfileYili Zhao, View ORCID ProfileLei Zhang, View ORCID ProfileMarkus Rütgen, View ORCID ProfileRonald Sladky, View ORCID ProfileClaus Lamm
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.30.441951
Yili Zhao
1Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Liebiggasse 5, 1010 Vienna, Austria
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Lei Zhang
1Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Liebiggasse 5, 1010 Vienna, Austria
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Markus Rütgen
1Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Liebiggasse 5, 1010 Vienna, Austria
2Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, University of Vienna, Liebiggasse 5, 1010 Vienna, Austria
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Ronald Sladky
1Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Liebiggasse 5, 1010 Vienna, Austria
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Claus Lamm
1Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Liebiggasse 5, 1010 Vienna, Austria
2Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, University of Vienna, Liebiggasse 5, 1010 Vienna, Austria
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  • For correspondence: claus.lamm@univie.ac.at
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Abstract

Empathy for pain engages both shared affective responses and self-other distinction. In this study, we addressed the highly debated question of whether neural responses previously linked to affect sharing could result from the perception of salient affective displays. Moreover, we investigated how affect sharing and self-other distinction interact to determine our response to a pain that is either perceived as genuine or pretended (while in fact both were acted for reasons of experimental control). We found stronger activations in regions associated with affect sharing (anterior insula, aIns, and anterior mid-cingulate cortex, aMCC) as well as with affective self-other distinction (right supramarginal gyrus, rSMG), in participants watching video clips of genuine vs. pretended facial expressions of pain. Using dynamic causal modeling (DCM), we then assessed the neural dynamics between the right aIns and rSMG in these two conditions. This revealed a reduced inhibitory effect on the aIns to rSMG connection for genuine compared to pretended pain. For genuine pain only, brain-to-behavior regression analyses highlighted a linkage between this inhibitory effect on the one hand, and pain ratings as well as empathic traits on the other. These findings imply that if the pain of others is genuine and thus calls for an appropriate empathic response, neural responses in the aIns indeed seem related to affect sharing and self-other distinction is engaged to avoid empathic over-arousal. In contrast, if others merely pretend to be in pain, the perceptual salience of their painful expression results in neural responses that are down-regulated to avoid inappropriate affect sharing and social support.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • We made it more clear in the manuscript (in the abstract and introduction) that all painful expressions were acted regardless of genuine or pretended conditions.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted May 17, 2021.
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Neural dynamics between anterior insular cortex and right supramarginal gyrus dissociate genuine affect sharing from automatic responses to pretended pain
Yili Zhao, Lei Zhang, Markus Rütgen, Ronald Sladky, Claus Lamm
bioRxiv 2021.04.30.441951; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.30.441951
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Neural dynamics between anterior insular cortex and right supramarginal gyrus dissociate genuine affect sharing from automatic responses to pretended pain
Yili Zhao, Lei Zhang, Markus Rütgen, Ronald Sladky, Claus Lamm
bioRxiv 2021.04.30.441951; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.30.441951

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