Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, United States
Jialin Li
Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
Weihua Zhao
Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
Lei Xu
Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
Xiaoxiao Zheng
Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
Meina Fu
Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
Shuxia Yao
Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
Tor D Wager
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, United States
Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
Pain empathy can be evoked by multiple cues, particularly observation of acute pain inflictions or facial expressions of pain. Previous studies suggest that these cues commonly activate the insula and anterior cingulate, yet vicarious pain encompasses pain-specific responses as well as unspecific processes (e.g. arousal) and overlapping activations are not sufficient to determine process-specific shared neural representations. We employed multivariate pattern analyses to fMRI data acquired during observation of noxious stimulation of body limbs (NS) and painful facial expressions (FE) and found spatially and functionally similar cross-modality (NS versus FE) whole-brain vicarious pain-predictive patterns. Further analyses consistently identified shared neural representations in the bilateral mid-insula. The vicarious pain patterns were not sensitive to respond to non-painful high-arousal negative stimuli but predicted self-experienced thermal pain. Finally, a domain-general vicarious pain pattern predictive of self-experienced pain but not arousal was developed. Our findings demonstrate shared pain-associated neural representations of vicarious pain.
