Assessing the effects of an empathy education program using psychometric instruments and brain fMRI.

This study aimed to (1) evaluate the effects of an empathy education program, and (2) explore functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as a potential empathy assessment tool. An empathy enhancement program for premedical students was developed. The Korean version of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Student version (JSE-S) and Interpersonal Reactivity Index (K-IRI) were used to measure self-assessed changes in empathy. Clinical vignettes demonstrating empathy tasks were presented to participants undergoing fMRI, to assess regional changes in the brain. Self-reported empathy scores and brain activity signals using fMRI from before and after the program were compared. The JSE-S total and perspective taking scores significantly increased after the program. Data from the fMRI revealed noticeable differences in cognitive regions associated with empathy, namely the right superior medial frontal gyrus and left precentral gyrus. This study results support the prior evidence of positive impact of empathy education. In addition, the authors suggest that brain fMRI might be used in measuring the effectiveness of empathy education.

Correction to: Assessing the effects of an empathy education program using psychometric instruments and brain fMRI.

Due to an unfortunate turn of events, the funding note was omitted from the original publication. The correct funding note is published here and should be treated as definitive.

Facial expression primes and implicit regulation of negative emotion.

An individual's responses to emotional information are influenced not only by the emotional quality of the information, but also by the context in which the information is presented. We hypothesized that facial expressions of happiness and anger would serve as primes to modulate subjective and neural responses to subsequently presented negative information. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a functional MRI study in which the brains of healthy adults were scanned while they performed an emotion-rating task. During the task, participants viewed a series of negative and neutral photos, one at a time; each photo was presented after a picture showing a face expressing a happy, angry, or neutral emotion. Brain imaging results showed that compared with neutral primes, happy facial primes increased activation during negative emotion in the dorsal anterior cingulated cortex and the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which are typically implicated in conflict detection and implicit emotion control, respectively. Conversely, relative to neutral primes, angry primes activated the right middle temporal gyrus and the left supramarginal gyrus during the experience of negative emotion. Activity in the amygdala in response to negative emotion was marginally reduced after exposure to happy primes compared with angry primes. Relative to neutral primes, angry facial primes increased the subjectively experienced intensity of negative emotion. The current study results suggest that prior exposure to facial expressions of emotions modulates the subsequent experience of negative emotion by implicitly activating the emotion-regulation system.

Altered Neural Activity in the Anterior and Posterior Insula in Individuals with Problematic Internet Use.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with problematic Internet use (PIU) are known to experience increased craving for immediate monetary reward despite long-term negative consequences. What remains unclear is whether their sensitivity to monetary loss is altered. We investigated neural alterations in brain regions involved in the anticipation of a monetary reward and loss avoidance in order to advance our understanding of the characteristics of PIU. METHODS: A total of 11 adults with PIU and 22 age-matched controls participated in this functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Inside the scanner, participants performed a monetary incentive learning task during which they chose one of two fractal stimuli associated with monetary gain (reward trials) or avoidance of monetary loss (avoidance trials). RESULTS: We found that, relative to controls, activity in the posterior insula during reward anticipation was greater in participants with PIU, whereas its activity during avoidance anticipation was reduced. No group differences in activation were found during reception phases. CONCLUSIONS: Given the roles of the posterior insula in the cortical representation of somatosensory arousal, our results suggest that individuals with PIU may experience more elaborate somatosensory arousal during the anticipation of monetary reward and yet experience less elaborate somatosensory arousal during the anticipation of loss avoidance compared with typical controls.

Individual differences in sensitivity to reward and punishment and neural activity during reward and avoidance learning.

In this functional neuroimaging study, we investigated neural activations during the process of learning to gain monetary rewards and to avoid monetary loss, and how these activations are modulated by individual differences in reward and punishment sensitivity. Healthy young volunteers performed a reinforcement learning task where they chose one of two fractal stimuli associated with monetary gain (reward trials) or avoidance of monetary loss (avoidance trials). Trait sensitivity to reward and punishment was assessed using the behavioral inhibition/activation scales (BIS/BAS). Functional neuroimaging results showed activation of the striatum during the anticipation and reception periods of reward trials. During avoidance trials, activation of the dorsal striatum and prefrontal regions was found. As expected, individual differences in reward sensitivity were positively associated with activation in the left and right ventral striatum during reward reception. Individual differences in sensitivity to punishment were negatively associated with activation in the left dorsal striatum during avoidance anticipation and also with activation in the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex during receiving monetary loss. These results suggest that learning to attain reward and learning to avoid loss are dependent on separable sets of neural regions whose activity is modulated by trait sensitivity to reward or punishment.