Little sympathy through painkillers

Own sense of pain important for empathy
Empathy is paramount in everyday life for social interaction. Everyone has surely experienced how an unknown person has to hurt or suffer pain. Often it is then that in the first moment this pain is felt. It is even hard to suppress or ignore this feeling. But how important is it for someone to feel pain themselves? You have to be able to feel pain yourself in order to be able to sympathize with the pain of others?

Neuroscientific models suggest that it is necessary to be able to experience pain in order to be able to feel pain in other people. It is believed that in pain empathy certain brain regions are activated. These are partly involved in the processing of own pain. From this one could conclude that pain empathy and own pain draw on similar neuronal functions. Claus Lamm and his team used this knowledge about pain empathy in a study funded by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund. To find an explanation of the neurobiological mechanisms of empathy, the University of Vienna conducted an investigation. For this more than 100 test persons were tested. Experimental manipulation of self-perceived pain has been used to test how it also affects empathy for pain. For this purpose, a so-called placebo analgesia was performed.

Painkillers reduce compassion for the pain of others. (Image: PhotoSG / fotolia.com)

Painkillers as well as placebo reduce empathy
In the placebo analgesia group, subjects reported their reduced subjective pain perception. This was associated with a reduced brain activity in the anterior insular cortex and the middle cingulate cortex, said psychologist Claus Lamm in the journal "PNAS" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). These areas in the brain are known as part of the neural empathy network, the expert said. At the same time, they are also central components of the body's own opiate system, ie the system involved in the attenuation of self-perceived pain, the physician explained further.

In a follow-up experiment, the University of Vienna tested the involvement of the opiate system in the observed placebo empathy effect. This was hoped to draw clearer conclusions on participating neurotransmitter systems, the researchers said. Lahm and his team blocked with a drug, the opiate receptors. This triggered a blockade of the placebo empathy effect. This made a possible involvement of the opiate system in placebo empathy more likely. Study leader Lamm explained that this represents a significant step towards a more mechanistic understanding of empathy.

Less pain sensitivity also changes the pain feeling
To feel less pain also means less understanding of other people's pains. Patients who took painkillers or sham medicines felt less pain than the control group. It could also be observed that the sympathy for the pain of the other subjects was greatly reduced. The participants themselves were less sensitive to pain and therefore considered painful stimuli in other people less stressful.

The team is currently working on another study to investigate the direct effects of opiate administration on empathy. The results make it clear that empathy is very much based on personal experience, Lamb and colleagues. This is one of the reasons why other people's feelings and pains can be so close to us, explained Lamm. This also provides an explanation for why empathy can sometimes go in the wrong direction: We judge other people primarily from our own perspective. (As)