Dispositional empathy predicts primary somatosensory cortex activity while receiving touch by a hand

Abstract

Previous research revealed an active network of brain areas such as insula and anterior cingulate cortex when witnessing somebody else in pain and feeling empathy. But numerous studies also suggested a role of the somatosensory cortices for state and trait empathy. While recent studies highlight the role of the observer's primary somatosensory cortex when seeing painful or nonpainful touch, the interaction of somatosensory cortex activity with empathy when receiving touch on the own body is unknown. The current study examines the relationship of touch related somatosensory cortex activity with dispositional empathy by employing an fMRI approach. Participants were touched on the palm of the hand either by the hand of an experimenter or by a rubber hand. We found that the BOLD responses in the primary somatosensory cortex were associated with empathy personality traits personal distress and perspective taking. This relationship was observed when participants were touched both with the experimenter's real hand or a rubber hand. What is the reason for this link between touch perception and trait empathy? We argue that more empathic individuals may express stronger attention both to other's human perceptions as well as to the own sensations. In this way, higher dispositional empathy levels might enhance tactile processing by top-down processes. We discuss possible implications of these findings.

Figure 1

Statistical maps showing brain activation while participants received touch on the palm of the hand by the experimenter’s hand or by a rubber hand (relative to no touch). Areas of significant fMRI signal change are shown as color overlays on the T1-MNI reference brain (FWE corrected at p < 0.05).

Figure 2

Correlation scatterplots for empathy scores of IRI with BOLD signal change in SI.

Figure 3

Correlation scatterplots for empathy scores of IRI (PD and PT) with BOLD signal change in left and right anterior insula. Results revealed no significant relationships with any of the IRI dimensions (all p > 0.10).