The emotional cost of caring: amygdala lesions reduce the aversiveness of affective empathy

Key Points

• The aim is to explore the relationship between amygdala lesions and the emotional costs associated with affective empathy.
• Analysis of findings from Scheffer et al.'s study on empathy and amygdala damage.
• Comparison of emotional responses before and after amygdala lesions.
• Lesions in the amygdala reduce the unpleasantness linked to experiencing affective empathy.
• Surviving emotional motivations in empathy despite structural brain changes.