PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Xiaojing Xu
AU  - Xiangyu Zuo
AU  - Xiaoying Wang
AU  - Shihui Han
TI  - Do You Feel My Pain? Racial Group Membership Modulates Empathic Neural Responses
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2418-09.2009
DP  - 2009 Jul 01
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience
PG  - 8525--8529
VI  - 29
IP  - 26
4099  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/29/26/8525.short
4100  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/29/26/8525.full
SO  - J. Neurosci.2009 Jul 01; 29
AB  - The pain matrix including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) mediates not only first person pain experience but also empathy for others' pain. It remains unknown, however, whether empathic neural responses of the pain matrix are modulated by racial in-group/out-group relationship. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging we demonstrate that, whereas painful stimulations applied to racial in-group faces induced increased activations in the ACC and inferior frontal/insula cortex in both Caucasians and Chinese, the empathic neural response in the ACC decreased significantly when participants viewed faces of other races. Our findings uncover neural mechanisms of an empathic bias toward racial in-group members.