SynthesisSocial cognitive and affective neuroscience2020
Shared and distinct functional networks for empathy and pain processing: a systematic review and meta-analysis of fMRI studies.
Synthesis in Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
54 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Neural correlates of negative aesthetic evaluations in visual art: a neuroimaging meta-analysis.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Pooled it
- Economic value in the Brain: A meta-analysis of willingness-to-pay using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction.PloS one · 2023Pooled it
- Dysregulated anterior insula reactivity as robust functional biomarker for chronic pain-Meta-analytic evidence from neuroimaging studies.Human brain mapping · 2022Pooled it
- A feature-based network analysis and fMRI meta-analysis reveal three distinct types of prosocial decisions.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- Overlapping and specific neural correlates for empathizing, affective mentalizing, and cognitive mentalizing: A coordinate-based meta-analytic study.Human brain mapping · 2021Pooled it
- Shared effects of the opioid antagonist naltrexone on first-hand and empathic pain.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Trial
- Random forest and Shapley Additive exPlanations predict oxytocin targeted effects on brain functional networks involved in salience and sensorimotor processing, in a randomized clinical trial in autism.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Trial
- Acupuncture modulates emotional network resting-state functional connectivity in patients with insomnia disorder: a randomized controlled trial and fMRI study.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2024Trial
- Exposure to hate speech deteriorates neurocognitive mechanisms of the ability to understand others' pain.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- Resolving temporal threat uncertainty by observational learning involves the amygdala, hippocampus and anterior insula.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Empathy for pain persists across live two-way video interactions and viewing of prerecorded videos.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neural effects of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation over left supramarginal gyrus on cognitive empathy for pain.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Individual differences in the empathic experience of pain: An EEG and machine learning approach.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Reduced activation in empathy core regions during observation of social interactions in patients with borderline personality disorder: an fMRI-study.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Intrinsic connectivity patterns of striatal subfields predict individual dimensions of psychopathology and are associated with cholinergic and serotonergic neurotransmission in schizophrenia.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Approach or Avoidance? The Impact of Pain Expectation on Pain Empathy: An ERP Study.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Computed Tomography ofVeterinary medicine international · 2026Article
- Chronic Pain Modulates Empathic Responses in People with Spinal Cord Injury.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Target Weight and Gender Moderate Anti-Black Bias in Pain Perception.Social psychological and personality science · 2025Article
- Regional and whole-brain neurofunctional alterations during pain empathic processing of physical but not affective pain in migraine patients.The journal of headache and pain · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
backgroundEmpathy for pain is a complex phenomenon incorporating sensory, cognitive and affective processes. Functional neuroimaging studies indicate a rich network of brain activations for empathic processing. However, previous research focused on core activations in bilateral anterior insula (AI) and anterior cingulate/anterior midcingulate cortex (ACC/aMCC) which are also typically present during nociceptive (pain) processing. Theoretical understanding of empathy would benefit from empirical investigation of shared and contrasting brain activations for empathic and nociceptive processing.
methodThirty-nine empathy for observed pain studies (1112 participants; 527 foci) were selected by systematic review. Coordinate based meta-analysis (activation likelihood estimation) was performed and novel contrast analyses compared neurobiological processing of empathy with a comprehensive meta-analysis of 180 studies of nociceptive processing (Tanasescu et al., 2016).
resultsConjunction analysis indicated overlapping activations for empathy and nociception in AI, aMCC, somatosensory and inferior frontal regions. Contrast analysis revealed increased likelihood of activation for empathy, relative to nociception, in bilateral supramarginal, inferior frontal and occipitotemporal regions. Nociception preferentially activated bilateral posterior insula, somatosensory cortex and aMCC.
conclusionOur findings support the likelihood of shared and distinct neural networks for empathic, relative to nociceptive, processing. This offers succinct empirical support for recent tiered or modular theoretical accounts of empathy.
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