MONDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) -- In rare cases, individuals can experience the tactile sensation of being touched when they observe another person being touched, and such patients have a heightened ability to empathize with others, according to a study published online June 17 in Nature Neuroscience.
The phenomenon, called mirror-touch synesthesia, was previously reported in one person. In this study, Michael Banissy and Jamie Ward of University College London, U.K., identified 10 other subjects with this condition and tested their ability to discriminate between actual and synesthetic touch.
The investigators found that these "mirror-touch" subjects were slower to respond in reporting the location of touch sensation to their own face or hand when observing others being touched simultaneously. Synesthesia subjects also made more errors in reporting the location of the actual touch. They also scored higher on the emotional reactivity scale of the empathy quotient questionnaire suggesting they show a greater connectivity to those they observe.
"Given the neural mechanisms thought to be involved in mirror-touch synesthesia, the differences in empathic ability reported here appear consistent with the hypothesis that we understand and empathize with others by a process of simulation," the authors write.
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