5 137 Neural signatures of parental empathic responses to imagined suffering of their adolescent child child suffering. In addition, functional MRI analyses revealed increased activation within the cognitive empathy network (i.e., left TPJ, bilateral dmPFC and vmPFC), while no differential activation was found within the affective empathy network (i.e., bilateral AI and aMCC) when parents imagined their own versus an unfamiliar child suffering. Parental care did not co-vary with activity in the empathy networks, but parents who were perceived as less caring exhibited increased BOLD-responses in anterior and lateral prefrontal regions (i.e., right SFG and left OFG) when imagining their own child suffering. In line with our hypotheses, parents reported higher levels of subjective distress and exhibited significantly increased neural activation in left TPJ and bilateral dmPFC and significantly decreased deactivation in vmPFC while imagining the suffering of their own child versus an unfamiliar child. Moreover, it is of note that the significant differences between these perspectives were medium to large in size (Cohen’s d main effect ‘perspective’ = 1.02). These regions are part of the cognitive empathy network, involved in complex socio-emotional processes such as mentalizing and perspective taking (Kogler et al., 2020; Shamay-Tsoory, 2011). We speculate that this enhanced neural responding in this cognitive empathy network may be suggestive of recruitment of perspective-taking and theory of mind processes when imagining suffering for their own child (versus an unfamiliar child) (Mitchell, 2009), which is in line with prior research indicating that interpersonal closeness and similarity to the person suffering modulate the neural responses underpinning empathy for others (Bruneau et al., 2013; Cheng et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2017). However, it is of note that it is still a matter of debate whether specific regions in the “cognitive empathy” network are purely involved in cognitive empathy processes and not (also) in affective empathy processes (Schurz et al., 2020). The increased involvement of cognitive empathy regions for the imagined suffering of the own versus an unfamiliar child might relate to the fact that past experiences with the own child have created a vast array of social knowledge about how the own child responds to unpleasant situations. This might make it easier for parents to predict how the child respond in hypothetical situations, whereas this is not the case for the unfamiliar child (Krienen et al., 2010; Laurita et al., 2017; Laurita et al., 2019a; Spreng & Mar, 2012). This link with autobiographical memory is supported by the extensive overlap between neural patterns associated with autobiographical memory and brain regions involved in the cognitive empathy network as we found in the present study (i.e., TPJ, dmPFC and vmPFC), as indicated by Spreng and Mar (2012). It is of note that the observed deactivation in vmPFC might reflect a task-induced deactivation relative to the activation in this region in response to our implicit baseline (i.e., display of fixation crosses during inter-trial intervals). This pattern is consistent with prior studies (Binder et al., 1999; Mckiernan et al., 2003) and might suggest a decrease in socio-emotional processing in the vmPFC during imagined suffering of the own child. This is in line with a prior study by Krienen et al. (2010) that found a similar deactivation pattern in the vmPFC in relation to social closeness towards friends versus strangers.
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