Tuesday, May 8, 2012

(1) On the edge of psychopathy (Jim Fallon admits lack of empathy and care) and (2) Mirror pain and touch synesthesia: people who feel the pain of others


BBC: All in the Mind (1/5/2012)

Professor James Fallon tells Claudia Hammond his tale of self-discovery: a story with some dark and disturbing turns involving psychopaths and brain scans, family skeletons, some very personal genetic revelations and the power of parental love.
Two people who experience mirror-pain and mirror-touch synaesthesia explain what it's like to see someone being hurt and feeling the sensation of pain or touch in the same place themselves. Michael Banissy, a neuropsychologist at University College, London talks about his research on this strange phenomenon. He looked at what's happening in the brains of these people and discovered that they are also extra-empathetic emotionally.
(Click here)