Do you often cry watching your children’s movies? Do you tend to quickly share on Social Networks any photo that moves you? If so, and according to a group of scientists, perhaps you are among the 20% of the population genetically predisposed to empathy, that cognitive ability that allows us to perceive what another individual feels, or more sensitive than usual.
Scientists at Stony Brook University, University of California, from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Monmouth University have analyzed the brains of highly sensitive people and compared them with those of less sensitive and sensitive. The analysis was made using the fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) technique, a clinical and research procedure that allows imaging of the brain regions that perform a specific task.
According to the researchers themselves, previous studies had already suggested that sensitivity for sensory processing is an innate characteristic found in approximately one fifth of the world population (also in men and women) but that, from time to time, On the other hand, the relationship between this greater sensitivity with genes, physiological reactions and patterns of brain activation has been increasingly demonstrated.
In this study, what was done was to compare the brains of individuals of this type with individuals with a lower level of sensory and sensory processing. The scientists point out that this is the first analysis that shows how the brains of the first type of people process emotions.