5 131 Neural signatures of parental empathic responses to imagined suffering of their adolescent child Figure 5.2 Mean levels of subjective distress in parents after imagining socially and physically unpleasant situations involving the self, their own child, or an unfamiliar child. Dots represent mean levels of self-reported subjective distress per parent for each condition. Error bars represent standard error of the mean. Significant p-values <.05 were indicated by *, p <.01 by **, and p <.001 by ***. Neuroimaging findings: ROI analyses For all ROIs we extracted BOLD-responses to physically and socially unpleasant situations for each of the three perspectives (i.e., self, own child and unfamiliar child). We examined the effects of ‘perspective’ and ‘stimulus type’, while controlling for multiple comparisons in eight separate repeated-measures ANOVAs. Our analyses revealed a main effect of ‘perspective’ in ROIs involved in the cognitive, but not in the affective, empathy network. Parents exhibit significant differences in BOLD-responses in the cognitive empathy network in bilateral TPJ (right: F(2,118) = 5.680, p = .004; left: F(2,118) = 6.182, p = .003), bilateral dmPFC (right: F(2,118) = 10.871, p <.001; left: F(2,118) = 7.781, p <.001) and vmPFC (F(2,118) = 21.101, p <.001), dependent on perspective, see Figure 5.3 and Supplement S5.5. Post-hoc pairwise comparisons (using Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons) indicated that parents exhibited significantly increased BOLD-responses for own child versus unfamiliar child perspective in left TPJ (p = .005), left dmPFC (p <.001) and right dmPFC (p <.001), and a significant decreased deactivation in BOLD-response in vmPFC (p <.001). No significant differences were found in bilateral AI, aMCC and right TPJ between own child and unfamiliar child. For own child versus self, parents exhibited significantly increased BOLD-responses towards their own child in right TPJ (p = .025) and right dmPFC (p <.001), and a significant decreased
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