Empathy is an essential component of human social life, allowing us to understand and respond to the suffering of others. The human brain processes empathy through a complex system that includes mirror neurons and areas responsible for processing pain. This study showed that our empathic response changes with age: while empathy peaks in youth, the neural response to the suffering of others declines in old age. This suggests that although older adults may report feeling empathy, their brains react differently compared to young adults.
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings and emotions of other people. In other words, it is the ability to "put yourself in someone else's shoes." This process is fundamental to life in society, as it helps us connect with others and respond appropriately to their emotions.
Scientists divide empathy into two main types: Affective empathy is when we feel another person's emotion as if it were our own. This includes feelings such as compassion or even suffering when watching someone go through a difficult situation.
Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand what another person is feeling and why they feel it. This type of empathy is linked to our ability to imagine the other person's perspective and involves more sophisticated brain functions, such as reasoning and Theory of Mind (ToM), which allows us to interpret intentions and emotions.
Both affective and cognitive empathy are essential for healthy social interactions. However, scientists still don’t know exactly how these responses change over the lifespan.
While much research has been done on empathy in children and adolescents, there is little research on how the brain responds to empathy at different ages, especially in older adults.
Advances in neuroscience show that empathy is related to a group of brain regions called the mirror neuron system. This system is activated when we observe someone performing an action or feeling pain, causing our brain to “mirror” the other person’s experience, as if we were experiencing it ourselves.
A classic example is when we see someone get hurt, such as pricking their finger with a needle. Our mirror neurons fire, and we feel a “psychological pain,” as if the same thing had happened to us.
Brain imaging studies confirm that regions such as the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex are activated both when we feel real pain and when we see someone else suffering.
To better understand these neural responses, scientists use techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG), which measures the electrical activity of the brain. One of the main signals recorded by EEG is the mu rhythm, which is related to the activation of sensorimotor areas.
When we see someone in pain, this rhythm slows down, a phenomenon called mu desynchronization. This indicates that our brain is reacting to the suffering of the other, even if indirectly. Research has shown that this reaction is more intense when we see painful situations (such as a needle piercing the skin) than in neutral situations (such as a cotton swab touching the skin).
In addition, factors such as social proximity, gender and identification with the affected person can influence the level of empathic response.
In addition to physical pain, our brain also reacts to social pain, such as rejection, exclusion or humiliation. Studies show that being ignored or rejected activates the same brain areas involved in physical pain.
A famous experiment tested this with a virtual game called Cyberball, in which participants played ball with other players. Halfway through the game, the other characters would stop passing the ball to the participant, excluding them from the activity. Brain scans showed that this rejection activated the same brain circuitry that responds to physical pain.
Other experiments have shown that witnessing situations of social pain, such as seeing someone being humiliated, also triggers neural responses similar to those of physical pain. This suggests that our brains treat different types of suffering in similar ways.
Interestingly, some studies have shown that people who take painkillers, such as paracetamol, report less emotional distress after experiences of social exclusion. This reinforces the idea that physical pain and emotional pain share common brain mechanisms.
Empathy develops in infancy and changes throughout life. Studies indicate that affective empathy appears as early as infancy, around the age of 3. Young children already show concern when they see someone crying or getting hurt.
During adolescence, between the ages of 10 and 19, empathy is still developing. Adolescents tend to have more difficulty interpreting complex emotions and may be less likely to engage in prosocial behavior.
In young adulthood, between the ages of 20 and 40, empathy peaks. At this stage, people tend to be more emotionally stable and better able to understand the emotions of others.
In old age, affective empathy may remain stable or even increase, but the brain’s responses to the pain of others tend to decline. This means that although older adults report feeling more emotional empathy, their brains may react less intensely than those of younger adults.
These changes may be linked to the aging of the brain, but they may also reflect increased life experience, which makes older adults more emotionally selective and less reactive to the suffering of others.
To better understand how empathy develops across the lifespan, a new study analyzed empathic responses in 240 participants of different ages: adolescents, young adults, and older adults.
The researchers asked volunteers to observe images of hands and feet in painful situations (such as a cut or injury) and painless situations (such as a light touch). During the experiment, they measured the participants’ brain responses using EEG and also asked them to rate the intensity of the imagined pain.
The main results were:
Empathy was greater for scenes of physical pain than for social pain.
Young adults were the most sensitive to social pain events, while adolescents and older adults had weaker reactions.
Brain responses increased from adolescence to adulthood, but then decreased in old age.
These findings reinforce the idea that empathy follows a lifelong developmental process and that the brain responds differently depending on age and the type of pain observed.
Empathy is an essential component of human social life, allowing us to understand and respond to the suffering of others. The human brain processes empathy through a complex system that includes mirror neurons and areas responsible for processing pain.
This study showed that our empathic response changes with age: while empathy peaks in youth, the neural response to the suffering of others declines in old age. This suggests that although older adults may report feeling empathy, their brains react differently compared to young adults.
In the future, more detailed research may help us better understand these processes and even develop strategies to strengthen empathy at different stages of life. After all, the ability to connect emotionally with others is one of the most important characteristics of our humanity.
READ MORE:
Neural empathy mechanisms are shared for physical and social pain, and increase from adolescence to older adulthood
Heather J Ferguson, Martina De Lillo, Camilla Woodrow-Hill, Rebecca Foley, Elisabeth E F Bradford
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Volume 19, Issue 1, 2024, nsae080
Abstract:
Empathy is a critical component of social interaction that enables individuals to understand and share the emotions of others. We report a preregistered experiment in which 240 participants, including adolescents, young adults, and older adults, viewed images depicting hands and feet in physically or socially painful situations (versus nonpainful). Empathy was measured using imagined pain ratings and EEG mu suppression. Imagined pain was greater for physical versus social pain, with young adults showing particular sensitivity to social pain events compared to adolescents and older adults. Mu desynchronization was greater to pain versus no-pain situations, but the physical/social context did not modulate pain responses. Brain responses to painful situations increased linearly from adolescence to young and older adulthood. These findings highlight shared activity across the core empathy network for both physical and social pain contexts, and an empathic response that develops over the lifespan with accumulating social experience.
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