122 Chapter 5 associated with greater neural responses in the medial frontal gyrus in response to video vignettes of their own versus another infant. However, these studies were mostly performed in parents of infants and none of the behavioral measures was reported from the perspective of the child. The present study examined neural responses to both physically and socially unpleasant situations involving parents’ own child versus an unfamiliar child and also involving themselves in 60 parents of adolescent children (11-17 years of age). Additionally, we aimed to determine whether individual differences in parental neural responses to their own child’s suffering are associated with parental care in daily life as reported by the adolescent child. Based on prior neuroimaging work on affective empathy and interpersonal closeness (Cheng et al., 2010; Kogler et al., 2020; Singer et al., 2004), we expected that the affective empathy network (i.e., AI and aMCC) is sensitive to the imagined suffering of participants’ own child or an unfamiliar child and also when it concerns themselves. Moreover, we expected that these regions would be more activated in response to their own child’s imagined suffering compared to when parents imagine an unfamiliar child suffering. Additionally, based on prior work (Abraham et al., 2018; Cheng et al., 2010; Kogler et al., 2020), we expected that the cognitive empathy network (i.e., TPJ, dmPFC and vmPFC) is more sensitive to imagined suffering of others as compared to the suffering of themselves, and would also be more activated in response to imagined suffering of their own child versus an unfamiliar child. Moreover, parental care is expected to be associated with neural responses towards their own child (versus an unfamiliar child) in both the cognitive and affective empathic networks and other brain areas that may be relevant for parental responding, such as emotion regulation and cognitive control (Barrett et al., 2012; Kuo et al., 2012; Turpyn et al., 2020; Wan et al., 2014). Although we would like to emphasize that empathy can encompass both positive and negative emotions and situations (Lenzi et al., 2009; Perry et al., 2011), this task examines parental responses to negative situations first. METHOD Participants Sixty-three parents participated in this study. Three parents were excluded due to brain abnormalities, scanner artefacts, or incomplete data, resulting in a final sample of 60 parents of healthy adolescents, including 35 mothers (Mage = 48, SDage = 4.22) and 25 fathers (Mage = 51, SDage = 4.40). Demographics are reported in Table 5.1. Mothers were somewhat younger, and reported significantly higher empathic concern than fathers, but they did not differ on perspective taking (subscales of the interpersonal reactivity index, IRI (De Corte et al. (2007))) and on parental care (subscale of the parental bonding instrument, PBI (Parker et al. (1979))).
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