Review article
Neurobiological basis of empathy

Empathy is an ability to share and understand emotional state of other person. In this article, based on research results of cognitive and social neuroscience as well as neuropsychology, we show that empathy is a complex process engaging both bottom-up and top-down neural processing. Functioning of the former one is probably based on mirror neurons system that provides physiological mechanism for direct sharing of emotional state of other person. Results of neuroimaging studies show that in order to understand others” pain we use the same emotional representations that are engaged when we react to our own pain. Activation changes are observed mostly in anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula and somatosensory cortex. The latter top-down processing is based on control and inhibition mechanisms in which mainly prefrontal cortex areas are engaged. That complex process enables perspective taking – i.e. fully imagining and understanding what other person feels. Aspects of individual differences in empathy level are important issues for both scientific and therapeutic considerations. Therefore, different factors are discussed that modulate level of empathy measured by changes in activation of related brain areas.