Why don't you feel how I feel? Insight into the absence of empathy after severe Traumatic Brain Injury

▶ Traumatic brain injury (TBI) impacts upon an individual's ability to empathize both emotionally and cognitively. ▶ TBI impairs emotional responses (i.e. Corrugator EMG, valence and arousal ratings) to unpleasant pictures specifically, however lowers one's level of autonomic arousal to all pictures, regardless of affective valence. ▶ Hypoarousal to pleasant pictures in particular relates to the absence of empathy observed after TBI, which is consistent with the view that impaired emotional responsivity is associated with impairment to the empathy network. ▶ The results represent a further step towards understanding what processes shape empathy.