Essay Sample on Feeling the Pain Experienced by Others

Introduction

The general goal of the study was to assess whether distinct individuals feel the pain experienced by others. The specific goal is to evaluate the particular neural mechanisms in the brain that lead to a feeling of pain of others through an expression of empathy and sharing of effects between distinct individuals (Jackson, Meltzoff & Decety, 2005).

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Hypothesis

The general hypothesis of the study was that recognizing and evaluating the pain of others, in the absence of actual noxious stimuli will result in a neurohemodynamic alteration in the cerebral network that is used in the processing of pain. Prediction is based on previous studies that distinct parts of the body such as hands and feet experiencing pain should cause hemodynamic alterations in both primary and secondary sensory cortices. Besides, it is assumed that a change in the cerebral activities is predictable in the neural regions indicative of pain (Jackson et al, 2005).

Study Participants

The study sampled 15 participants who were all right-handed. The cohort comprised both genders with eight males and seven females who were all adults with age range of 19-29 years. All the subjects were healthy without devoid of any history of psychological or neurological illness. All participants had agreed to be part of the study after signing informed consent.

Methods

Picture stimuli test was carried out by showing the study subjects a set of pictures of individual under intense pain and another set where individuals are not under any pain. The images were divided into two categories of 64 photos in each group. Data on the Davis' Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) was collected using structured questionnaires that were administered to the study subjects. The subjects were subsequently exposed to four sessions of functional magnetic resonance imaging. Each of the session was divided into ten sets with five entries for each category (right hands and right foot in both painful and neutral situation and a baseline setup for static crosses and participants) asked to give their response on the intensity of the pain they think the individual in the picture will feel on a scale of 0-10. MRI data, changes in oxygen levels in the blood, structural MR images, and imaging processing data were obtained and analyzed using MATLAB 6.1 software.

Findings

The study participants rated the painful stimuli higher in the picture with persons under intense pain than in neutral pictures. The mean scale of the painful picture was 6.8 as opposed to the lower mean of 3 in the neutral picture. There was no significant difference between the hands and feet setups. In painful experience, several parts of the brain were activated; however, these parts were not activated in the neutral setup. The involved parts were anterior cingulate and insular cortices, anterior thalamus, and cerebellum (Jackson et al, 2005)

Conclusion

The author concluded that the aspect of neural triggers from experiences observed in other people would influence the behaviors of individuals. Ideal behavior will be enforced while inappropriate ones will be ceased. By just seeing, people will avoid dangerous circumstances that would potentially harm them. From the study, the author emphasized that there is a connection between the behaviors expressed by a person watching someone else in pain. The neural response of the observer evidences the connection. The effects occur due to activities of the anterior cingulate, insular cortices, thalamus, and cerebellum parts of the brain. These parts were more activated in painful experience than in neutral experience with a significant margin between the two factors. This computation was obtained by subtracting the sum of neutral experience from the sum of painful experience. There was no significant difference in the brain activity and the mode of expressing the aspect feeling of pain in individuals. Activation of the involved brain regions was not dependent on the part of the body on pain as portrayed in the picture and they followed a similar matrix (Jackson et al, 2005).

References

Jackson, P.L., Meltzoff, A.N., & Decety, J. (2005). How do we perceive the pain of others? A window into the neural processes involved in empathy. NeuroImage 24, 71 - 779