UCLA researchers have found that it is possible to assess a person’s
ability to feel empathy by studying their brain activity while they are resting
rather than while they are engaged in specific tasks.
Traditionally,
empathy is assessed through the use of questionnaires and psychological
assessments. The findings of this study offer an alternative to people who may
have difficulty filling out questionnaires, such as people with severe mental
illness or autism, said senior author Dr. Marco Iacoboni, professor of
psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at
UCLA.
“Assessing
empathy is often the hardest in the populations that need it most,” Iacoboni
said. “Empathy is a cornerstone of mental health and well-being. It promotes
social and cooperative behavior through our concern for others. It also helps
us to infer and predict the internal feelings, behavior and intentions of
others.”
Iacoboni has
long studied empathy in humans. His previous studies have involved testing
empathy in people presented with moral dilemmas or watching someone in pain.
For the current study, published in Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience,
researchers recruited 58 male and female participants ages 18 to 35.
Resting brain
activity data were collected using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or
fMRI, a noninvasive technique for measuring and mapping brain activity through
small changes in blood flow. Participants were told to let their minds wander
while keeping their eyes still, by looking at a fixation cross on a black
screen.
Afterward, the
participants completed questionnaires designed to measure empathy. They rated
how statements such as “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less
fortunate than me” and “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by
imagining how things look from their perspective” described them on a
five-point scale from “not well” to “very well.”
Researchers
wanted to measure how accurately they could predict the participants’ empathic
disposition, characterized as the willingness and ability to understand
another’s situation, by analyzing the brain scans.
The predictions
were made by looking into resting activity in specific brain networks that
earlier studies demonstrated are important for empathy. Researchers used a form
of artificial intelligence called machine learning, which can pick up subtle
patterns in data that more traditional data analyses might not.
“We found that
even when not engaged directly in a task that involves empathy, brain activity
within these networks can reveal people’s empathic disposition,” Iacoboni said.
“The beauty of the study is that the MRIs helped us predict the results of each
participant’s questionnaire.”
The findings
could help health care professionals better assess empathy in people with
autism or schizophrenia, who may have difficulties filling out questionnaires
or expressing emotion.
“People with
these conditions are thought to lack empathy,” he said. “But if we can
demonstrate that their brains have the capability for empathy, we can work to
improve it through training and the use of other therapies.”
Furthermore,
said lead author Leonardo Christov-Moore, a postdoctoral fellow currently at
USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute, this technique may be expanded to improve
treatment as well as diagnosis.
“The predictive
power of machine learning algorithms like this one, when applied to brain data,
can also help us predict how well a given patient will respond to a given
intervention, helping us tailor optimal therapeutic strategies from the
get-go.”
The study adds
to a growing body of research suggesting that brains at rest are as active as
brains engaged in a task, and that brain networks in the resting brain may
interact in a similar fashion as when they are engaged in a task.
Iacoboni said
future, larger studies may help identify other regions of the brain associated
with empathy.
Journal article: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnint.2020.00003/full
Source: https://myfusimotors.com/2020/02/21/empathy-can-be-detected-in-people-whose-brains-are-at-rest/
No comments:
Post a Comment