The primary aim of this study was to investigate the effect of imitating the movements of individuals with disabilities on enhancing empathic responses in people without disabilities, using fMRI to explore the underlying neural mechanisms.
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the neural activity patterns of 26 healthy participants while they felt the difficulties of individuals with hemiplegia who had moderate paralysis by adopting their perspective. In the MRI scanner, the participants initially either imitated or observed hemiplegic hand movements shown in video clips. Subsequently, the videos were rewatched and their difficulties were verbally rated by using 7-point scale. For imaging data analysis, we applied multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) incorporating machine learning techniques to detect patterns of brain activity across multiple voxels. This analysis provided a highly detailed neural representation of the effect of imitation on empathy.
Subjective rating scores indicated that participants empathized more with the difficulties of hemiplegia after imitating hemiplegic movements compared to merely observing them. MVPA using a cross-validation approach demonstrated that imitation-specific information was represented in brain regions involved in both affective and cognitive empathy. Cross-classification analysis revealed that distinct activation patterns in these brain regions were commonly present both during the imitation of hemiplegic movements and while participants subsequently felt into the difficulties of hemiplegia. This suggests that common neural representation for both types of empathy exists between the processes of imitation and empathic feeling. Representational similarity analysis also showed that activity patterns in the anterior cingulate cortex, related to affective empathy, aligned with participants' subjective assessments of hemiplegic difficulties.
Our findings demonstrate that imitating the movements of individuals with hemiplegia activates both affective and cognitive empathy systems, enhancing empathic responses. The affective empathy response was particularly tied to participants' assessments of hemiplegic difficulties, influenced by the imitation experience. Imitation appears to be a powerful tool for fostering empathy toward individuals with disabilities. Future research could further explore the long-term impact of imitation on empathy and the effect on supportive actions.
Our findings can be applied in educational settings, such as encouraging elementary school students to better understand the challenges faced by others. Additionally, these insights can be integrated into the education of physiotherapy students and entry-level physiotherapists, fostering empathy and improving patient care.
imitation
fMRI
