The mirror-touch synesthesia

Jun 19, 2007 09:36 GMT  ·  By

Do you share the suffering of your favorite character when looking at a movie? Do you feel every blow he/she receives? That's because your brain centers are activated by watching others suffering.

Now a research team has come with supplementary data to the theory that mirror systems in our brains are responsible for our ability to empathize with others. They reached this conclusion after experimenting on individuals with the rare ability to feel a touch upon their own bodies when they look at someone else being touched.

Previously, just one such case of mirror-touch synesthesia had been reported in the literature; University College London's Michael Banissy and Jamie Ward tested this rare ability in 10 other individuals.

First, the team found that the subjects possessed the mirror-touch synesthesia. These individuals and members of a control group reported where they felt a touch on their bodies while looking at another person being touched. But in fact, during the experiment an actual touch was applied to their bodies as well, in the same spot as the watched person or at a different one.

The mirror-touch synesthetes detected more rapidly the actual touch when it was applied on the same spot as the person they were watching at. They also felt the synesthetic touch as a real touch more often than the control subjects.

In a second part of the testing, the volunteers filled out a questionnaire assessing their empathy. The synesthetes individuals displayed a higher sense of emotional connectedness to others than nonsynesthetic subjects. These subjects were also more connected to others than subjects with different kinds of synesthesia, like synesthetes who perceive letters as inherently colored. also

The gathered information suggests that feelings of empathy originate at least partially in a mental simulation of what others are experimenting.

"This may be an exaggeration of a brain mechanism that we all possess to some degree," said Ward.

This shows "a purely mental personality trait being correlated with a basic physical sensation. It suggests that mirroring may be a general mechanism involved in regulating emotional behavior." said Vilayanur Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the first researchers in the field of mirror neurons.