Neural Signatures of Parental Empathic Responses to Imagined Suffering of Their Adolescent Child

• In Event: Neural Processes of Parent-Child Bonding: Individual Differences and Parent-Child Concordance.

Abstract

Empathy is deemed indispensable for sensitive caregiving. Neuroimaging studies have identified two key empathy networks consisting of regions supporting cognitive and affective aspects of empathy. However, not much is known about how these regions support empathy toward one’s own offspring, and how this neural activity relates to parental caregiving. To assess the affective and neural responses to the suffering of one’s own adolescent child we have developed a novel task. While in the scanner, 60 parents (n=35 mothers, n=25 fathers) were presented with unpleasant situations involving their own child, an unfamiliar child, and themselves. Parents were asked to vividly imagine these situations and indicate their levels of distress. Parents reported higher levels of distress when imagining their own versus an unfamiliar child suffering. Neuroimaging results showed increased activation within the cognitive empathy network (i.e., temporoparietal junction, dorsomedial- and ventromedial prefrontal cortex), while no differential activation was found within the affective empathy network (i.e., anterior insula and anterior mid-cingulate cortex) when parents imagined their own versus an unfamiliar child suffering. Parental care in daily life did not co-vary with activity in the empathy networks, but parents who were perceived as less caring by their children exhibited increased activity in anterior and lateral prefrontal regions when imagining their own child suffering. These results provide new insights into neural processes supporting parental empathy, highlighting the importance of regions in the cognitive empathy network when confronted with the suffering of their own child, and suggest that additional (i.e., emotion regulation) networks may be relevant for parental caring behavior in daily life.

Authors

• Mirjam Wever, Leiden University
  Presenting Author

• Lisanne van Houtum, Universiteit Leiden
  Non-Presenting Author

• Loes Janssen, Universiteit Leiden
  Non-Presenting Author

• Geert-Jan Will, Leiden University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marieke Tollenaar, Leiden University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Bernet Elzinga, Leiden University
  Non-Presenting Author