An fMRI investigation on empathy: physical and social pain, prosocial behavior and the role of the opioid system

The work presented in this thesis collects three fMRI studies mainly focusing on empathy, i.e. the capacity to understand and/or share the emotional state of others. Empathy is central to human sociality, as it allows us to resonate with others\u2019 positive and negative feeling, and consequently adjust our behavior. Despite recent research has shed light on many feature of empathic responses, we still ignore many other aspects: for instance, which kind of computational processes are executed by empathy \u301s neural substrates, how empathic responses vary according to the type of observed experience, which neurochemical mechanisms are at the core of empathic responses, or also what is the link between empathic responses and the tendency to behave altruistically (usually referred to as \u2018prosocial behavior\u2019). The purpose of the work presented in this thesis is providing answers to some of the open questions. In Study 1 we aimed at understanding what are the neural substrates of empathy for social pain, a kind of pain that is constantly grabbing increasingly attention among social neuroscientists, and to which extent they overlap with the ones coding for physical pain. In Study 2 we investigated brain correlates of prosocial behavior by exploring functional connectivity within brain networks of participants who exhibited either a self-benefit behavior or an altruistic one in a life-threatening situation simulated in a virtual environment. In Study 3 we used a placebo manipulation on a group of participants undergoing first- hand and vicarious painful stimulations in order to observe how the supposed enhancement of endogenous opioids release would affect their behavioral and neurophysiological responses to the painful experience. Overall, the work presented in this thesis advances the knowledge on both empathy and prosociality mechanisms and opens the way for new investigations aiming at clarifying key aspects of social behavior

Hedonic Responses to Touch are Modulated by the Perceived Attractiveness of the Caresser.

Abstract Previous research has shown that a specific type of C fiber, the C tactile afferents, are involved in detecting gentle, dynamic tactile stimuli on the skin, giving rise to affective responses in the central nervous system. Despite building on such bottom-up information flow, the hedonic perception and the physiological consequences of affective touch are influenced by various sources of top-down information. In the present study we investigated how perception of affective touch is influenced by the attractiveness of hypothetical caressers. Participants were stroked on the arm and the palm while looking at photos of high attractive and low attractive opposite-gender faces, and were instructed to imagine those people as the caressers. In a control condition no photo was paired with the touch. The stroking stimulation was delivered with a soft brush either on the forearm or on the palm, and either with a slower or faster speed. Participants rated the pleasantness of each stimulation, while electrocardiographic recordings were made to extract heart rate variability data. Results showed that participants preferred touch stimuli paired with high attractive faces; they also preferred palm stroking and slower stroking speed. Like subjective pleasantness ratings, heart rate variability responses to affective touch (slow) were higher for high attractive than for low attractive caressers, but were not selective for arm or palm stroking. Overall, the present study confirms that contextual social information plays a major role in affective touch experiences, influencing not only the hedonic quality of the experience but also the physiological state of the body

Molecular Anthropology in the genomic era

Molecular Anthropology is a relatively young field of research. In fact, less than 50 years have passed since the symposium ''Classification and Human Evolution'' ( 1962, Burg Wartenstein, Austria), where the term was formally introduced by Emil Zuckerkandl. In this time, Molecular Anthropology has developed both methodologically and theoretically and extended its applications, so covering key aspects of human evolution such as the reconstruction of the history of human populations and peopling processes, the characterization of DNA in extinct humans and the role of adaptive processes in shaping the genetic diversity of our species. In the current scientific panorama, molecular anthropologists have to face a double challenge. As members of the anthropological community, we are strongly committed to the integration of biological findings and other lines of evidence (e.g. linguistic and archaeological), while keeping in line with methodological innovations which are moving the approach from the genetic to the genomic level. In this framework, the meeting "DNA Polymorphisms in Human Populations: Molecular Anthropology in the Genomic Era" ( Rome, December 3-5, 2009) offered an opportunity for discussion among scholars from different disciplines, while paying attention to the impact of recent methodological innovations. Here we present an overview of the meeting and discuss perspectives and prospects of Molecular Anthropology in the genomic era

Consensus communication strategies to improve doctor-patient relationship in paediatric severe asthma

Background: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease that is very common among youth worldwide. The burden of this illness is very high not only considering financial costs but also on emotional and social functioning. Guidelines and many researches recommend to develop a good communication between physicians and children/caregiver and their parents. Nevertheless, a previous Italian project showed some criticalities in paediatric severe asthma management. The consensus gathered together experts in paediatric asthma management, experts in narrative medicine and patient associations with the aim of identify simple recommendation to improve communication strategies. Methods: Participants to the consensus received the results of the project and a selection of narratives two weeks before the meeting. The meeting was structured in plenary session and in three working groups discussing respectively about communication strategies with children, adolescents and parents. The task of each working group was to identify the most effective (DO) and least effective practices (DON' T) for 5 phases of the visit: welcome, comprehension of the context, emotions management, duration and end of the visit and endurance of the relationship. Results: Participants agreed that good relationships translate into positive outcomes and reached consensus on communication strategies to implement in the different phase of relationships. Conclusions: The future challenges identified by the participants are the dissemination of this Consensus document and the implementation of effective communication strategies to improve the management of pediatric asthma

Inter-society consensus for the use of inhaled corticosteroids in infants, children and adolescents with airway diseases

Background: In 2019, a multidisciplinary panel of experts from eight Italian scientific paediatric societies developed a consensus document for the use of inhaled corticosteroids in the management and prevention of the most common paediatric airways disorders. The aim is to provide healthcare providers with a multidisciplinary document including indications useful in the clinical practice. The consensus document was intended to be addressed to paediatricians who work in the Paediatric Divisions, the Primary Care Services and the Emergency Departments, as well as to Residents or PhD students, paediatric nurses and specialists or consultants in paediatric pulmonology, allergy, infectious diseases, and ear, nose, and throat medicine. Methods: Clinical questions identifying Population, Intervention(s), Comparison and Outcome(s) were addressed by methodologists and a general agreement on the topics and the strength of the recommendations (according to the GRADE system) was obtained following the Delphi method. The literature selection included secondary sources such as evidence-based guidelines and systematic reviews and was integrated with primary studies subsequently published. Results: The expert panel provided a number of recommendations on the use of inhaled corticosteroids in preschool wheezing, bronchial asthma, allergic and non-allergic rhinitis, acute and chronic rhinosinusitis, adenoid hypertrophy, laryngitis and laryngospasm. Conclusions: We provided a multidisciplinary update on the current recommendations for the management and prevention of the most common paediatric airways disorders requiring inhaled corticosteroids, in order to share useful indications, identify gaps in knowledge and drive future research

Bodily sensations in social scenarios: Where in the body?

Bodily states are fundamental to emotions emergence and are believed to constitute the first step in the chain of events that culminate in emotional awareness. Recent works have shown that distinct topographical maps can be derived to describe how basic and more complex emotions are represented in the body. However, it is still unclear whether these bodily maps can also extend to emotions experienced specifically within social interactions and how these representations relate to basic emotions. To address this issue, we used the emBODY tool to obtain high-resolution bodily maps that describe the body activation and deactivation experienced by healthy participants when presented with social scenarios depicting establishment or loss of social bonds. We observed patterns of activation/deactivation for each single social scenario depending on the valence, but also a common activation of head, chest and deactivation of limbs for positive and negative social scenarios, respectively. Furthermore, we show that these maps are comparable to those obtained when taking the perspective of a third person, suggesting the existence of common body representation of social emotions for the self and other person evaluation. Finally, we showed that maps related to complex social scenarios are strongly correlated with bodily states experienced in basic emotions, suggesting that the patterns of body activation/ deactivation observed for social scenarios might arise from a complex interaction of the basic emotions that these experiences elicit

Prediction and action in cortical pain processing

Predicting that a stimulus is painful facilitates action to avoid harm. But how distinct are the neural processes underlying the prediction of upcoming painful events vis-a-vis those taking action to avoid them? Here, we investigated brain activity as a function of current and predicted painful or nonpainful thermal stimulation, as well as the ability of voluntary action to affect the duration of upcoming stimulation. Participants performed a task which involved the administration of a painful or nonpainful stimulus (S1), which predicted an immediately subsequent very painful or nonpainful stimulus (S2). Pressing a response button within a specified time window during S1 either reduced or did not reduce the duration of the upcoming stimulation. Predicted pain increased activation in several regions, including anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), midcingulate cortex (MCC), and insula; however, activation in ACC and MCC depended on whether a meaningful action was performed, with MCC activation showing a direct relationship with motor output. Insulas responses for predicted pain were also modulated by potential action consequences, albeit without a direct relationship with motor output. These findings suggest that cortical pain processing is not specifically tied to the sensory stimulus, but instead, depends on the consequences of that stimulus for sensorimotor control of behavior.Funding Agencies|Swedish Research CouncilSwedish Research CouncilEuropean Commission [FYF-2013-687]</p

Genetic risk-factors for anxiety in healthy individuals : polymorphisms in gene simportant for the HPA axis

Background Two important aspects for the development of anxiety disorders are genetic predisposition and alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In order to identify genetic risk-factors for anxiety, the aim of this exploratory study was to investigate possible relationships between genetic polymorphisms in genes important for the regulation and activity of the HPA axis and self-assessed anxiety in healthy individuals. Methods DNA from 72 healthy participants, 37 women and 35 men, were included in the analyses. Their DNA was extracted and analysed for the following Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP)s: rs41423247 in the NR3C1 gene, rs1360780 in the FKBP5 gene, rs53576 in the OXTR gene, 5-HTTLPR in SLC6A4 gene and rs6295 in the HTR1A gene. Self-assessed anxiety was measured by the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) questionnaire. Results Self-assessed measure of both STAI-S and STAI-T were significantly higher in female than in male participants (p = 0.030 and p = 0.036, respectively). For SNP rs41423247 in the NR3C1 gene, there was a significant difference in females in the score for STAI-S, where carriers of the G allele had higher scores compared to the females that were homozygous for the C allele (p &lt; 0.01). For the SNP rs53576 in the OXTR gene, there was a significant difference in males, where carriers of the A allele had higher scores in STAI-T compared to the males that were homozygous for the G allele (p &lt; 0.01). Conclusion This study shows that SNP rs41423247 in the NR3C1 gene and SNP rs53576 in the OXTR gene are associated with self-assessed anxiety in healthy individuals in a gender-specific manner. This suggests that these SNP candidates are possible genetic risk-factors for anxiety.CC BY 4.0 [artikel], CC0 1.0 [data]</p

Human endogenous oxytocin and its neural correlates show adaptive responses to social touch based on recent social context

Both oxytocin (OT) and touch are key mediators of social attachment. In rodents, tactile stimulation elicits the endogenous release of OT, potentially facilitating attachment and other forms of prosocial behavior, yet the relationship between endogenous OT and neural modulation remains unexplored in humans. Using a serial sampling of plasma hormone levels during functional neuroimaging across two successive social interactions, we show that contextual circumstances of social touch influence not only current hormonal and brain responses but also later responses. Namely, touch from a male to his female romantic partner enhanced her subsequent OT release for touch from an unfamiliar stranger, yet females’ OT responses to partner touch were dampened following stranger touch. Hypothalamus and dorsal raphe activation reflected plasma OT changes during the initial social interaction. In the subsequent interaction, precuneus and parietal-temporal cortex pathways tracked time- and context-dependent variables in an OT-dependent manner. This OT-dependent cortical modulation included a region of the medial prefrontal cortex that also covaried with plasma cortisol, suggesting an influence on stress responses. These findings demonstrate that modulation between hormones and the brain during human social interactions can flexibly adapt to features of social context over time