The Anatomy of Suffering: Understanding the Relationship between Nociceptive and Empathic Pain

Jamil Zaki; Tor D Wager; Tania Singer; Christian Keysers; V. Gazzola

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2016.02.003

The Anatomy of Suffering: Understanding the Relationship between Nociceptive and Empathic Pain

Jamil Zaki, Tor D Wager, Tania Singer, Christian Keysers, V. Gazzola

Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN)

Research output: Contribution to journal/periodical › Article › Scientific › peer-review

139 Citations (Scopus)

351 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Pain features centrally in numerous illnesses and generates enormous public health costs. Despite its ubiquity, the psychological and neurophysiological nature of pain remains controversial. Here, we survey one controversy in particular: the relation between nociceptive pain, which is somatic in origin, and empathic pain, which arises from observing others in pain. First, we review evidence for neural overlap between nociceptive and empathic pain and what this overlap implies about underlying mental representations. Then, we propose a framework for understanding the nature of the psychological and neurophysiological correspondence across these types of 'pain'. This framework suggests new directions for research that can better identify shared and dissociable representations underlying different types of distress, and can inform theories about the nature of pain.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	249-59
Number of pages	11
Journal	Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Volume	20
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.02.003
Publication status	Published - Apr 2016

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Keysers2016TICSAccepted author manuscript, 849 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

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The Anatomy of Suffering: Understanding the Relationship between Nociceptive and Empathic Pain

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