The magazine of the european research area European Commission Copenhagen, a missed chance?

Élise Dubuisson 

(1)  All quotes are from Morten Kringelbach.

(2)  A much-used expression for postnatal depression.

 

    TrygFonden Research Group

 

www.kringelbach.dk/science.html

NEUROSCIENCE

From pleasure 

to empathy…

W

ith Morten Kringelbach interested 

in people having difficulty experi-

encing pleasure, Tania Singer and 

her colleagues at the University of Zurich are 

focussing on the feeling of empathy. This team 

of researchers believe that, in a society where 

crime and human rights violations are on the 

increase, the ability to influence the capacity for 

empathy could be beneficial.

The project, running under the name 

EMPATHICBRAIN, is looking into the possibility 

of  strengthening our ability to understand 

our  own feelings and those of others. Tania 

Singer is attempting to find an answer to this 

question using an innovative multidisciplinary 

approach. EMPATHICBRAIN is in fact a mixture of 

neuroscience, economics, psychology and psy-

chobiology (the study of the relationships 

between the psyche and biological functions).

The first step of this long journey to the heart 

of the brain involves detecting functional and 

structural differences in the brains of people 

with a distinct capacity for empathy. However, 

the researchers are not just content with mak-

ing  observations. They are also developing 

a whole learning programme for empathy, culti-

vating equanimity, empathic joy, compassion 

and loving kindness