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Author reply: Empathy and the Brain: How We Can Make Progress
Henrik Walter
Emotion Review 2012 4: 22
DOI: 10.1177/1754073911421398
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EMR4110.1177/1754073911421398WalterEmotion Review
Author Reply
Emotion Review
Vol. 4, No. 1 (January 2012) 2223
The Author(s) 2012
ISSN 1754-0739
DOI: 10.1177/1754073911421398
er.sagepub.com
Henrik Walter
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charit Universittsmedizin Berlin, Germany
Abstract
Neuroscientific research on empathy has made much progress recently.
How far can we get and how should we do it? Two different routes have
been suggested by Dziobek and Jacobs in their commentaries. The first is
becoming ecologically more valid by using real-life settings as stimuli. The
second is becoming more quantitative by specifying a neurocognitive model,
allowing more precise quantitative predictions. Although neither approaches
are mutually exclusive, I suggest that these two routes are in a certain
tension to each other. I suggest an additional third, more indirect way,
namely studying modulating factors of empathy like emotion regulation
which have until now been largely neglected in empathy research.
Keywords
affective neuroscience, emotion regulation, empathy, theory of mind
Corresponding author: Henrik Walter, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Charit Universittsmedizin Berlin, Campus Mitte,
Charitplatz 1, D-10117 Berlin, Germany. Email: henrik.walter@charite.de
References
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Emotion Review, 3, 92108.
de Vignemont, F., & Singer, T. (2006). The empathic brain: How, when and
why? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 435441.
Dziobek, I. (2012). Towards a more ecologically valid assessment of
empathy. Emotion Review, 4, 1819.
Erk, S., Mikschl, A., Stier, S., Ciaramidaro, A., Gapp, V., Weber, B., &
Walter, H. (2010). Acute and sustained effects of cognitive emotion
regulation in major depression. The Journal of Neuroscience, 30,
15726 15734.
Jacobs, A. (2012). Comment on Walters Social cognitive neuroscience
of empathy: Concepts, circuits, and genes. Emotion Review, 4,
2021.
Schardt, D. M., Erk, S., Nsser, C., Nthen, M. M., Cichon, S., Rietschel, M.,
Walter, H. (2010). Volition diminishes genetically mediated amygdala
hyperreactivity. NeuroImage, 53, 943951.
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circuits, and genes. Emotion Review, 4, 917.
Walter, H., Kalckreuth, A., Schardt, D., Stephan, A., Goschke, T., &
Erk, S. (2009). The temporal dynamics of voluntary emotion regulation:
Immediate and delayed neural aftereffects. PLoS ONE, 4, e6726. doi:
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