Feeling the Emotions--论文代写范文精选

单独神经系统的情感和行动表示,在灵长类动物的大脑确实存在。边缘系统是至关重要的处理情感和行为的区域,最小的神经结构对行为是至关重要的。在这篇paper代写范文中，解剖数据表明,岛叶与边缘系统以及后顶叶等相连。

Abstract
Empathy allows the sharing of experiences, needs, and goals across individuals, thus playing a fundamental role in social cognition. The functional aspects and corresponding neural mechanisms of empathy, however, are poorly understood. When Theodore Lipps introduced the concept of empathy (Einfu¨hlung), he theorized a critical role for the mechanism of inner imitation of the actions of others in generating empathy (as cited in Gallese, 2001). In support of Lipps’s idea, empathic individuals exhibit nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, and facial expressions of others (the chameleon effect) to a greater extent than nonempathic individuals (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). 

Thus empathy may occur via a mechanism for representing action that modulates and shapes our understanding of the emotional states of other individuals. Separate neural systems for emotions and action representation, however, do exist in the primate brain. The limbic system is critical for processing emotion and behavior, and the temporo-parieto-frontal circuit I described earlier (the minimal neural architecture for imitation) is critical for representing action. Anatomical data suggest that a sector of the insular lobe, the dysgranular field, is connected with the limbic system as well as with posterior parietal, inferior frontal, and superior temporal cortex (Augustine, 1996). 

The Minimal Neural Architecture for Imitation and the Limbic
To test this hypothesis, we performed two experiments—a brain imaging experiment with normal volunteers and a neuropsychological study with both neurological patients and normal controls. In the brain imaging study (Carr et al., 2003) we used fMRI while the subjects were either observing or imitating emotional facial expressions. A modulation of the action representation circuit onto limbic areas via the insula predicts greater activity in the whole network during imitation, compared with observation of emotion. In fact, mirror areas would be more active during imitation than during observation because of the simultaneous encoding of the sensory input and planning of the motor output. Within mirror areas, the inferior frontal cortex seems particularly important here, given that an understanding of goals is an important component of empathy. The insula would be more active during imitation because its role as a relay would increase, compared with mere observation. Finally, limbic areas would also increase their activity because of the increased motor activity. 

Moreover, if mediation by representations of action is really critical to empathy and the understanding of the emotions of others, then even the mere observation of emotional facial expressions should activate brain regions of motor significance. Thus observation and imitation of emotions should yield substantially similar patterns of activated brain areas, with greater activity in premotor cortex, especially inferior frontal cortex, and in superior temporal cortex, insula, and limbic areas during imitation. The results of the fMRI study confirmed our hypothesis. There was a substantially similar network of activated areas for both imitation and observation of emotion. 

Among the areas activated during both imitation and observation, the premotor face area, the dorsal sector of pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus, the superior temporal sulcus, the insula, and the amygdala had greater activity during imitation than during observation of emotion. The peak of activation in primary motor cortex during imitation of facial emotional expressions that we observed in our study corresponds extremely well with the location of the primary motor mouth area as determined by a meta-analysis of published PET studies, by a meta-analysis of original data in thirty subjects studied with PET, and by a consensus probabilistic description of the location of the primary motor mouth area obtained by merging the results of the two previously described metaanalyses (Fox et al., 2001). 

This confirms the robustness and reliability of the data, in spite of the presence of facial motion during imitation. This is because, even though motion artifacts were present at the individual level, the group analysis got rid of them since each subject had different kinds of motion artifacts and they were thus eliminated when all the data were considered. In keeping with this, the data also clearly show peaks of activity in the pre-SMA face area and the face area of the posterior portion of the rostral cingulate zone (RCZp) that correspond extremely well with the preSMA and RCZp face locations as determined by a separate meta-analysis of PET studies that focused on motor areas in the medial wall of the frontal lobe (Picard & Strick, 1996).

Thus, our dataset clearly represents the first fMRI demonstration of human primary motor and rostral cingulate face areas. With regard to premotor regions, the peaks that we observed correspond well with premotor mouth peaks as described by studies in which action was observed. In fact, robust premotor responses during the observation of facial emotional expressions were found, which is in line with the hypothesis that action representation mediates the recognition of emotions in others even during simple observation. The activity in pars opercularis shows two separate foci during imitation, a ventral and a dorsal peak, but only the dorsal peak remained activated, albeit at significantly lower intensity, during observation of emotion. This pattern, with very similar peaks of activation, was also observed in our fMRI meta-analysis of imitation and observation of hand actions previously described (Molnar-Szakacs et al., 2002). 

In the monkey, F5 neurons coding arm and mouth movements are not spatially segregated, and our human imaging data are consistent with this observation. Furthermore, the imaging data on imitating facial emotion converge with the data on hand imitation in suggesting that the mirror sector of the human inferior frontal gyrus is located in the dorsal part of pars opercularis. The anterior sector of the insula was active during both imitation and observation of emotion, but more so during imitation, fulfilling one of the predictions of the hypothesis that action representation mediates empathy. This is in line with two kinds of evidence available on this sector of the insular lobe. First, the anterior insula seems to receive slow-conducting unmyelinated fibers that respond to a light, caresslike touch and may be important for emotional and affiliative behavior between individuals (Olausson et al., 2002). Second, imaging data suggest that the anterior insular sector is important for the monitoring of agency (Farrer & Frith, 2002), the sense of ownership of actions, which is a fundamental aspect of action representation. 

This confirms a strong input into the anterior insular sector from areas of motor significance. The increased activity in the amygdala during imitation compared with observation of emotional facial expression reflects the modulatory role of the action representation circuit in limbic activity. It has been long hypothesized (Darwin was the first in 1871; Ekman, 1973, 1999; Buck, 1980) that facial muscular activity influences people’s affective responses. This is the first demonstration, however, that activity in the amygdala, a critical structure in emotional behaviors and in the recognition of facial emotional expressions of others, increases while subjects imitate the facial emotional expressions of others, compared with mere observation.

Conclusion 
The temporo-parieto-frontal circuit described here is the first available neural model of imitation in primates. The anatomical location and the functional properties that this circuit exhibits confirm a key role for imitation in learning and communication. This may not appear as big news to behavioral scientists who have studied imitation for years and have observed how imitative abilities are tied to social learning. The novelty, however, resides in the fact that our research program shows how the functional properties of a relatively well-developed large-scale neural circuit can now inform us about the functional characteristics of behavioral domains that remained for a long time impenetrable to a neuroscientific investigation. This information, in turn, can be used to test more general questions in the behavioral sciences; for instance, the innateness or learnability of some functions, or the approach human beings take to mentalizing.(paper代写)

51Due网站原创范文除特殊说明外一切图文著作权归51Due所有；未经51Due官方授权谢绝任何用途转载或刊发于媒体。如发生侵犯著作权现象，51Due保留一切法律追诉权。
更多paper代写范文欢迎访问我们主页 www.51due.com 当然有paper代写需求可以和我们24小时在线客服 QQ:800020041 联系交流。-X(paper代写)