Summary: Chimpanzees have been observed yawning and lying down after seeing a humanoid android mimic a yawning facial expression, indicating contagious yawning triggered by an artificial agent. This study is…
Tag: empathy
Psychedelics May Shift Brain Power to the Right Hemisphere
Summary: A new theory suggests that psychedelics promote empathy, insight, and psychological flexibility by making the brain’s right hemisphere temporarily dominant over the left. Known as HEALS—Hemispheric Annealing and Lateralization…
Oxytocin Powers Altruistic Responses via Parallel Brain Circuits
Summary: A new study reveals that mice instinctively display rescue-like behaviors toward anesthetized peers, offering powerful evidence that prosociality may be hardwired in mammals. Researchers identified oxytocin as a key…
What the ‘moral distress’ of doctors tells us about eroding trust in health care
I sit on an ethics review committee at the Albany Med Health System in New York state, where doctors and nurses frequently bring us fraught questions. Consider a typical case:…
Empathy Loss in Dementia Linked to Brain Activity Changes
Summary: Frontotemporal dementia, affecting about 3% of dementia patients in Sweden, is characterized by a loss of empathy that challenges patients and their families. Using functional MRI, researchers found that…
How Alcohol Increases Pain Tolerance, and Aggression
Summary: Alcohol not only raises pain tolerance but also amplifies aggression, according to a new study. Researchers found that participants who drank alcohol had higher pain thresholds and were more…
Feeling Beautiful Spurs Kindness and Generosity
Summary: A new study shows that enhancing one’s appearance, even virtually, increases prosocial behavior such as kindness and charitable giving. Participants who saw enhanced images of themselves were twice as…
