1. Neural Correlates of
Admiration and Compassion
Immordino-Yang M H et al. PNAS 2009
Anna Jo
2010. 3. 2

2. Emotional reactions to another person’s
psychological or physical state
Goal Social/psych physical
ological
Admiration for virtue for skill
(AV) (AV)
Compassion for pain for pain
(CSP) (CPP)
[ Assumption ]
the experience of all 4 emotions:
- anterior insula,
- anterior cingulate
- hypothalamus
- mesencephalon.

3. “Not clarified” Posteromedial cortices(PMC)
in social tasks and episodic memory
[ Hypotheses ]
1. Admiration and compassion would engage sub-cortical nuclei in brainstem and hypothalamus,
and somato-sensory cortices in interoceptive (anterior insula) and exteroceptive sectors (somato-
sensory association areas including the superior parietal lobule and supra marginal gyrus);
2. Admiration and compassion would engage the PMC (posterior cingulate, retrosplenial cortex
and precuneus);
3. Activation in the anterior insula would peak and dissipate more quickly for CPP than for CSP or
varieties of admiration.
[ Novelty ]
- Neural basis of admiration
- Neural correlates of compassion states(CSP vs. CPP)

4. fMRI and behavioral Methods
[ Experimental Design ]
1. Participants: 13 participants (6 women and 7 men)
2. 4 distinct conditions: admiration for virtue (AV), admiration for skill (AS), compassion for social
pain (CSP), and compassion for physical pain (CPP)
3. Stimuli: Audio/video/still images involving social pain (CSP); bodily injury without social
consequences (CPP); virtuous acts (AV); or virtuosic skill without virtuous implications (AS)
4. blood-oxygen-level-dependent(BOLD) signal, respiration rate, and heart rate data
• ANCOVA random effect analysis
• Event-related averages(ERAs)
• Bootstrap procedure

5. Results
Anterior cingulate
Posterior insula
Medulla Anterior insula
Lateral parietal cortices
Hypothalamus
Posterior, inferior Anterior, superior
posteromedial cortices(pm) posteromedial cortices(pm)

6. Results
Relative activation in the posteromedial cortices (PMC, outlined in pink) for
(AV/CSP, blue → green) Vs. (AS/CPP, orange → yellow)

7. Discussion
1. Parvizi et al. : the superior/anterior portion of the PMC<AS, CPP> is strongly interconnected
with lateral parietal cortices, whereas the inferior/posterior portion<AV, CSP> is closely associated
with the anterior middle cingulate cortex, which is itself strongly connected with the insular cortex.
2. Activity in the anterior insula [ compassion for physical pain(CPP) ] peaked more quickly and for
a shorter duration than during CSP (and AV, AS)
Þ emotions about others’ physically painful predicaments co-opt neural mechanisms for
personally experienced pain most efficiently and directly
Þ emotions about others’ psychological/moral situations build on these same mechanisms but
may operate less efficiently and directly.