SynthesisCortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior2020
Do I feel or do I know? Neuroimaging meta-analyses on the multiple facets of empathy.
Synthesis in Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Empathy in Adults with Acquired Brain Injury: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Neuropsychology review · 2026Pooled it
- Audiovisual integration in the human brain: a coordinate-based meta-analysis.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2023Pooled it
- A feature-based network analysis and fMRI meta-analysis reveal three distinct types of prosocial decisions.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- Female Cerebellum Seems Sociable; An iTBS Investigation.Cerebellum (London, England) · 2024Trial
- Acute tryptophan depletion balances altered resting-state functional connectivity of the salience network in female patients recovered from anorexia nervosa.Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPNTrial
- Why are you looking at me like that? Intolerance of uncertainty and emotional face processing in social anxiety disorder.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2026Article
- [Neuropsychological effects of playing violent video games].Neuropsychiatrie : Klinik, Diagnostik, Therapie und Rehabilitation : Organ der Gesellschaft Osterreichischer Nervenarzte und Psychiater · 2026Review
- Exploring Empathic Responses to Others' Positive and Negative Experiences: Insights from Empathy Subprocesses.Neuroscience bulletin · 2026Article
- Refugees welcome? Empathy attenuates effects of xenophobia on neuronal responses to in-group and out-group suffering.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Rewriting the crime divide: how executive functions and social cognition processes challenge violence classifications in the Colombian prison population.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Cosmetic after-feel modulates brain activity in sensory and reward networks: an fMRI study.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Resting-state functional connectivity related to empathy and sensory processing sensitivity.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Therapeutic modulation of empathy: pharmacological, neurostimulation, and behavioral approaches.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Exploring individual differences in the impact of cognitive constraints on prosocial decision-making via intrinsic brain connectivity.Brain imaging and behavior · 2025Article
- The (un-)Social Brain in Isolation.Physiological research · 2025Review
- Neural Tracking of Race-Related Information During Face Perception.Neuroscience bulletin · 2025Article
- Cumulative Dopaminergic Genetic Effects on Empathy Development in Emerging Adults.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2025Article
- A Quantitative Review of Brain Activation Maps for Mentalizing, Empathy, and Social Interactions: Specifying Commonalities and Differences.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Unveiling the Role of Theory of Mind: Neural Response to Emotional Stimuli in Context.Affective science · 2025Article
- Reducing racial ingroup biases in empathy and altruistic decision-making by shifting racial identification.Science advances · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Empathy is a multidimensional construct including affective and cognitive components while maintaining the distinction between one-self and others. Our meta-analyses focused on shared and distinct networks underlying cognitive (taking somebody else's perspective in emotional/painful situations) and affective (self-referentially feeling somebody else's emotions/pain) empathy for various states including painful and emotional situations. Furthermore, a comparison with direct pain experience was carried out. For cognitive empathy, consistent activation in the anterior dorsal medial frontal gyrus (dmPFG) and the supramarginal gyrus (SMG) occurred. For affective empathy, convergent activation of the posterior dmPFG and the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was found. Consistent activation of the anterior insula (AI), the anterior dmPFG and the SMG was observed for empathy for pain, while convergent recruitment of the temporo-parietal junction, precuneus, posterior dmPFG, and the IFG was revealed in the meta-analysis across empathy for emotion experiments. The AI and the dmPFG/mid-cingulate cortex (MCC) showed overlapping as well as distinct neural activation for pain processing and empathy for pain. Taken together, we were able to show difference in the meta-analytic networks across cognitive and affective empathy as well as for pain and empathy processing. Based on the current results, distinct functions along the midline structures of the brain during empathy processing are apparent. Our data are lending further support for a multidimensional concept of empathy.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.