Study Says Empathy May Cause Real Pain
Thu Feb 19, 2:01 PM ET
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
A groundbreaking study shows that some of the same brain regions
involved in feeling physical pain become activated when someone
empathizes with another's pain.
And when it's time to feel better, thinking that a drug helps can make
it so, according to a different brain-scanning study that finally
caught the power of placebo in action.
The studies, reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science,
provide important new evidence of the power of the mind, said Dr. Jon
Levine, a pain specialist at the University of California, San
Francisco, who reviewed the research.