Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on January 25, 2012

Why do some human groups appear to hate each other? New research by a group of neuroscientists attempts to use brain imaging to determine how the brain responds to empathy and conflict-resolution.

Drs. Emile Bruneau and Rebecca Saxe of Massachusetts Institute of Technology are studying why empathy — the ability to feel compassion for another person’s suffering — often fails between members of opposing groups. “What are the psychological barriers that are put up between us in these contexts of intergroup conflict, and then, critically, what can we do to get past them?” Bruneau said.

Bruneau and Saxe are also trying to locate patterns of brain activity that correlate with empathy, in hopes of eventually using such measures to determine how well people respond to reconciliation programs aimed at boosting empathy between groups in conflict.

“We’re interested in how people think about their enemies, and whether there are brain measures that aremreliable readouts of that,” said Saxe. “This is a huge vision, of which we are at the very beginning.”

Before researchers can use tools such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to evaluate whether conflict-resolution programs are having any effect, they need to identify brain regions that respond to other people’s emotional suffering.

In an earlier study, Saxe and Bruneau scanned people’s brains as they read stories in which the protagonist experienced either physical or emotional pain. The brain regions that responded uniquely to emotional suffering overlapped with areas known to be involved in the ability to perceive what another person is thinking or feeling.

From this knowledge, the researchers designed an experiment that they hoped would show a correlation between empathy levels and amount of activity in those brain regions.

They recruited Israelis and Arabs for a study in which subjects read stories about the suffering of members of their own groups or that of conflict-group members. The study participants also read stories about a distant, neutral group — South Americans.

As expected, Israelis and Arabs reported feeling much more compassion in response to the suffering of their own group members than that of members of the conflict group.

However, the brain scans revealed something surprising: Brain activity in the areas that respond to emotional pain was identical when reading about suffering by one’s own group or the conflict group.

Also, those activity levels were lower when Arabs or Israelis read about the suffering of South Americans, even though Arabs and Israelis expressed more compassion for South Americans’ suffering than for that of the conflict group.

This suggests particular brain regions are sensitive to the importance of the opposing group, not whether or not you like them.

These findings are published in the journal

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences.

A short video interview with Bruneau and Saxe about their groundbreaking work can be found on the MIT website. 

Joan Chiao, an assistant professor of psychology at Northwestern University, said those brain regions may be acting as a “thermometer” for conflict.

“It’s a really fascinating study because it’s the first to examine the neural basis of people’s behavior in longstanding conflicts, as opposed to groups that are distant and don’t have a long history of intergroup strife,” said Chiao, who was not involved in the research.

However, because the study did not reveal any correlation between the expression of empathy and the amount of brain activity, more study is needed before MRI can be used as a reliable measure of empathy levels, Saxe says.

“We thought there might be brain regions where the amount of activity was just a simple function of the amount of empathy that you experience,” Saxe said.

“Since that’s not what we found, we don’t know what the amount of activity in these brain regions really means yet. This is basically a first baby step, and one of the things it tells us is that we don’t know enough about these brain regions to use them in the ways that we want to.”

Bruneau is now testing whether these brain regions send messages to different parts of the brain depending on whether the person is feeling empathy or not.

It could be that when someone reads about the suffering of an in-group member, the brain regions identified in this study send information to areas that process unpleasant emotions, while stories about suffering of a conflict-group member activate an area called the ventral striatum, which has been implicated in schadenfreude — taking pleasure in the suffering of others.

Nauert PhD, R. (2012). Probing the Neural Networks of Human Conflict.

Psych Central

What a great day to treat yourself, your spine and your nervous system to an adjustment. Enjoy the beauty of Vancouver and the beauty within you!

Amazing research being done in Japan called “Forest Therapy” is looking at how a walk in the forest amongst the trees can be beneficial to your health. This research has been done on cancer patients in particular and has found that Natural Killer Cells, part of our immune system that keeps cancerous growth in check, increase when time is spent amongst the trees.

The wonders of nature.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20080502f1.html

Tony Robbins on Network Spinal Analysis

Happy New Year everyone. 

During our family vacation to Palm Springs over the holidays we came across “Salvation Mountain” in a little town south of Joshua Tree National Park.  This man made mountain of sorts was made as a mission of love by a man over the past 30 years.  Of course, I was reminded of the Wizard of Oz and the search for the Wizard by Dorothy and her companions.  Often in the search for our own health and wellness we can be led down the path of searching out a wizard who will provide us what we are seeking. 

Imagine that wizard lies within us.  Pain is our body’s cry for change.  It is one of the ways that our body tells us to stop, pay attention and do something different.  As my teacher, Dr Donald Epstein says, we often know what change we need to make but it may lie just outside of our comfort zone.  Change how we move our bodies, how we think, what we feed ourselves, how we connect to others. 

The new year is a perfect time to reflect on what changes we are committed to making. 

Wishing you all a year full of discovery, joy, growth and connection. The wizard you are seeking lies within. Discover it with new depth.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day I can hear her breathing.

Arundhati Roy

Donate your new or like-new warm winter and socks and shoes at Broadway Wellness this holiday season and enter a raffle to win free treatments!

Every winter our cold wet Vancouver weather pose a serious health concern for people living on the streets.   Open and infected sores never get a chance to heal when shoes and socks are just constantly wet – commonly called “street feet”.  In colder conditions, frostbite is an added concern.  

If you want to “put yourself in someone’s shoes” this season – please drop off your new or like-new warm socks and shoes this holiday season.  We have hampers set up in our reception area for your donation.  As an added bonus, after you make your donation, you can enter a draw and win free services at our clinic!

The Covenant House will be re-distributing your donation on all our behalves.  Covenant House Vancouver exists for those young people for whom there is often no one else — young people aged 16 – 24 who have fled physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse, those who have been forced from their homes or those who have aged out of foster care. They bandage their cut-up feet from days and nights walking the streets; give them hot food and a warm bed and support them in their choice to change their present circumstances while helping them heal from past traumas. 

During winter months, nurses are called in at times to cleanse, heat, disinfect, and bandage cold, damp feet.  Afterwards, each person is sent away equipped with a fresh pair of socks, and a new pair of shoes.

This is where you come in.  Men’s new or like new shoes sizes 10-13, and Women’s 7-9 are needed most. I think we can all agree relentlessly cold, damp, infected feet need a fresh pair of socks, and a dry pair of shoes.

Come help out, and thanks.   We’ll send over the donations December 31.

We’ll contact you in early in the new year if your name is drawn.  Prizes include:

• a $100 gift certificate to be used for a service of your choice
• a reiki session
• a reflexology session

Posing in high-power (vs. low-power) nonverbal displays caused neuroendocrine and behavioral changes for both male and female participants. High-power posers experienced elevations in testosterone, decreases in cortisol, and increased feelings of power and tolerance for risk; low-power posers exhibited the opposite pattern. In short, adopting powerful postures allowed subjects to prepare for stressful situations and confidently take risks due to psychological, physiological, and behavioral changes — and not due to a placebo effect or a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The proof that a person can, via a simple two-minute pose, embody power and instantly become more powerful has real-world implications in a variety of fields and situations — such as athletic performance, courtroom arguments, networking and job interviews, efforts to instill more women executives in Fortune 500 corporations, and the universal challenge of public speaking. Now there is evidence that power positioning is not effective because it heightens others’ awareness of an individual. Instead, power positioning allows an individual to prepare for a challenge on a neuroendocrine level, and gives him or her the ability to excel in decision-making and naturally gain power.

Carney, D.R., Cuddy, A.J., & Yap, A.J. (2010). Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance. Psychological Science, 21. doi: 10.1177/0956797610383437.

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/acm.2009.0043