Thomas Lewis, M.D. "is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, and a former associate director of the Affective Disorders Program there. Dr. Lewis currently divides his time between writing, private practice, and teaching at the UCSF medical school."

Video Authors@Google: Thomas Lewis

Author Dr. Thomas Lewis discusses "The Neuroscience of Empathy" as part of the Authors@Google series. This event took place December 5, 2007 at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA.
 

• 02:00 Overview Outline

  • Evolution

  • The Brain

  • Modeling
    projections

  • self image

  • adjusting self and other

• Etymology of Empathy

  • em - in, Path = suffering

  • into the suffering feeling of others

• 05:00 History Evolution

  • sharks

  • dinosaurs

  • 09:00 mammals

    • need care

    • need protection

    • need to be feed

    • need to be taught

• 11:50 Brains

  • reptilian brain - amigdula

  • mammals - new brain layer - limbic system, light of empathy from here

  • neo cortex - smartness, language, logic, technology, imagine

• 13:50 Study of empathy

  • Modeling

  • People's behavior is contagious

    • yawning

    • smiling

    • tone of voice

    • spider on arm

  • Why is this contagious?

    • being touched and seeing others being touched

    • model it in your own brain

  • 19:00 pain studies and MRIs

    • see pain in others and you feel it

    • anterior cortex lights up

  • 20:00 Clinton says he can feel your pain

    • example or balls

    • examples of needle

    • other peoples adversity

  • 22:30 Brain part that models emotion

    • anterior temporal lobe

    • losing empathy because of brain disease

  • 23:30 First law of empathy

    • Empathy begins with the covert modeling of what other people are doing and experiencing

  • 24:00 Sociopath

    • mri's of brains

    • can't model other people

  • 25:30 Self Projection

    • create space models?

    • imagining - project your point of view in space

    • other points in space

    • somewhat cognitive

  • 31:00 2nd Law of Empathy

    • Empathy proceeds through the imaginative projections of the mind's eye - through space, time, and identity

    • brain problems in this area?

      • Autistic Spectrum

        • deficit in point of view

        • minds eye

      • in ASD listening to human voice don't get point of view

  • 36:15 Adjusting the Balance - Self and others

    • balancing your emotions and others emotions

    • your future or past self

    • suppressing - inhibits self perspective

    • doctors-novice and empathy

      • doctors/experts suppress it

      • inhibits modeling

  • 41:50 3rd law of empathy - empathy finishes with fine-tuning the balance between self and others

    • can't be swamped with empathic input

    • balance

      • Selfish - don't inhibit self

        • Narcissism

        • very emotional - panic attack

        • emotions run away with you

        • cold and hot Narcissism

        • dark and light narcissism - I'm doing it for you

  • 45:30 The map

    • move to music is modeling what it would be like to make the music

  • 47:15 Q and A

    • Male and female models?

      • partially feminized brain

      • woman generally more empathic

    • Blunting empathy with art?

      • art heightens empathy

      • entertainment blunts empathy

    • Male and female empathy differences?

      • there's evidence men generally are less empathic than woman

      • woman - language, relationship, empathy

      • a biological function for nurturing children

    • Male and female brain?

      • more on hard wiring than socializations

   

Empathy Work

• Institute of Noetic Sciences Annual Meeting, “The Psychobiology of Empathy.” August 11, 2007

• Stanford University, Program in Human Biology. Delivered one lecture, “The Neuroscience of Empathy,”
  for Human Biology 121, Ethical Issues in Neuroscience. April 21, 2008

• “The Neuroscience of Empathy: A Practical Approach.” September 18, 2008. All-day practicum given for Google University.

• California College of the Arts. “The Neuroscience of Empathy.” December 12, 2008.

• Stanford University, Program in Human Biology. Delivered one lecture, “The Neuroscience of Empathy,”for Human Biology 121, Ethical Issues in Neuroscience. April 29, 2009.

• California College of the Arts. “The Neuroscience of Empathy.” September 25, 2009.

• Course: The Neuroscience of Empathy Fall Semester, 2007. Lectures:

  • The Evolution of Empathy

  • Empathic Modeling in the Brain

  • The Projection of Viewpoint Through Space, Time, and Identity

  • Adjusting the Balance Between Self and Other

  • Empathic Deficit Syndromes 1: Autism

  • Empathic Deficit Syndromes II: Narcissism and Sociopathy

  • The Role of Empathy in Morality and Politics

  • Empathy and Music in the Brain.

• “Empathy and Depression: The Moral System on Overdrive.” Chapter from Empathy in Mental Illness, Tom F.D. Farrow and Peter W.R. Woodruff, editors. Cambridge University Press.

• Empathy and Sociopathy: Empathic Defects in the Sociopathic Mind (March 21,2009)