The following is a summary of “Activity increases in empathy-related brain regions when children contribute to peers’ sadness and happiness,” published in the December 2023 issue of Psychiatry by McDonald et al.
During childhood, understanding and responding to the emotions they cause in others is crucial for social interaction, yet existing research has certain gaps. Past studies have primarily explored empathy in children when observing rather than causing emotional reactions, focused more on negative emotions rather than positive ones, and centered on behavioral rather than neural aspects. In this investigation, 38 children (average age: 9.28 years; 50% female) participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task involving a game where they won or lost coins for themselves or peers, observing peers’ displays of happiness and sadness.
Utilizing a region of interest method, we examined whether brain regions linked to positive and negative empathy in adults showed heightened activity during different conditions (i.e., when children won or lost tokens for themselves and others) compared to a baseline fixation. Their hypothesis posited that experiencing self-conscious emotions, like pride or guilt, could intensify empathetic experiences.
Results revealed increased activity in brain regions associated with visceral arousal, such as the amygdala, and those linked to integrated arousal, such as the anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, when children won or lost tokens for themselves or peers and observed the resulting emotions. Notably, activity did not notably differ between playing for oneself versus peers, suggesting that self-conscious emotions may not heighten empathy. Instead, similar neural processes underlie firsthand and secondhand emotions (empathy) in children. These findings indicate that during middle childhood, empathy involves comparable brain regions to those observed in adulthood, illustrating that children encounter positive and negative emotions, whether experienced directly or observed in others, in comparable ways.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022096523001881
