New Scientist reports that empathy may be a very simple brain process: our brains simply transform what we see into what we might have felt in the same situation. (Research by Christian Keysers et al., University of Groningen, Neuron vol 42, p 335.)
MRI scans showed that the secondary somatosensory cortex - which was though to respond only to physical touch - lit up when a subject saw other people being touched.
Monkey see, monkey feel, in other words.
A corrolary is that someone who's lonely and out of reach of a friendly touch should go see a romantic movie; seeing people hug each other should generate the same warm feeling as being hugged would do.
I wonder whether reading about touch, or hearing a story, would also light up the same region of the brain; romantic fiction suggests that it would.
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