The Neuro-Protective Lifestyle

Brain Bliss: What’s Empathy Got To Do With It?

Posted on 05. Mar, 2008 by Kerry Friesen, M.D..

The “empathic” brain. We all assume we have one, but like “hen’s teeth” it’s rarer than you think. The unbridled capacity to share and completely comprehend the emotional state of another person…well it’s what’s being human is all about…isn’t it? Empathic helping behavior is observed among all primates, not just humans. For the most part, we are genetically “hardwired” to care for offspring or remote kin for that matter. However, what makes us distinctly human is the capacity to “feel for” anyone or any “thing”, species notwithstanding.

To quote the late great Funkadelic (a 70’s funk phenom that my daughter recently re-introduced me to), “ya’ll feel what I mean?”.

If you can’t then it’s entirely possible you’re a spindle neuron or two short of what it takes to connect the sensory and motor components of your limbic system. Ultimately, the limbic motor and limbic sensory system represent the neuroanatomical basis for all human emotion. No matter, if your spindle cells are frankly even finely tuned, without “self-awareness”, empathy just doesn’t happen. “Lesion studies” have been able to confirm this over and over again. Patients with damaged amygdalas are unable to discern fear despite severe facial grimacing. Ordinarily pain would trigger a whole host of neurophysiological signals resulting in “caring” behavior. While self-awareness has no specific neuroanatomical correlate and empathy does, empathy ultimately remains an intentional capacity. In other words, it is under conscious control.

That homeless person you see on the way home from work, will most likely go hungry. Hurry home. The stranded motorist with a cardboard sign and a plea for help will likewise suffer. Sleep tight. By choice then we occupy the same “emotionless” continuum as the Antisocial, Autistic and Borderline personality disorder sufferer. Autistic individuals for the most part remain emotionless. Antisocial and Borderline personality individuals suffer from a hyprevigilant limbic system and an underfunctioning prefrontal cortex. They simply “can’t” without conscious effort “feel what I mean”.

Call it alexithymia (the opposite of emotional intelligence) cause’ that’s what it’s called. The inability to process, describe, or understand emotions in the self. Without it, no bliss no internal resonating chord of love…just the question, “What’s empathy got to do with it?”.

The answer…? Everything.

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