Visceromotor roots of aesthetic evaluation of pain in art: an fMRI study.

ABSTRACT: Empathy for pain involves sensory and visceromotor brain regions relevant also in the first-person pain experience. Focusing on brain activations associated with vicarious experiences of pain triggered by artistic or non-artistic images, the present study aims to investigate common and distinct brain activation patterns associated with these two vicarious experiences of pain and to assess whether empathy for pain brain regions contributes to the formation of an aesthetic judgement (AJ) in non-art expert observers. Artistic and non-artistic facial expressions (painful and neutral) were shown to participants inside the scanner and then aesthetically rated in a subsequent behavioural session. Results showed that empathy for pain brain regions (i.e. bilateral insular cortex, posterior sector o

SUBMITTER: Ardizzi M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8599194 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature