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Mirror neurons, the insula, and empathy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2003

Marco Iacoboni
Affiliation:
UCLA Brain Mapping Center, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA 90095 iacoboni@loni.ucla.edu http://www.brainmapping.org
Gian Luigi Lenzi
Affiliation:
>Dipartimento di Scienze Neurologiche, Università “La Sapienza” di Roma, Rome 00185, Italygianluigi.lenzi@uniroma1.it

Abstract

Neurophysiological studies in monkeys and neuroimaging studies in humans support a model of empathy according to which there exists a shared code between perception and production of emotion. The neural circuitry critical to this mechanism is composed of frontal and parietal areas matching the observation and execution of action, and interacting heavily with the superior temporal cortex. Further, this cortical system is linked to the limbic system by means of an anterior sector of the human insular lobe.

Type
Brief Report
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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