Turns Out, Empathy Isn't a Cognitive Function

I always thought empathy was a cognitive function, a thought-ful/mind-ful cortical exertion that focused on processing emotional data from the primitive brain.

Research using MRI scanners monitored volunteers while their legs were touched and while they watched videos of other people being touched and of objects colliding.

Turns out, a sensory area of the brain called the secondary somatosensory cortex, thought only to respond to physical touch, was strongly activated by the sight of others being touched.

This suggests that empathy requires no specialised brain area. The brain simply transforms what we see into what we would have felt in the same situation.

"This means we can feel empathy without building up complex theories about what others feel". The researcher says.

This is good to know since I've always thought that empathy has something to do with a set of intuitive emotional knowledge we all have.