Keysers group

General description research

The Keysers group studies the neural basis of empathy, prosociality and social cognition. How is it, that the joys and pains of others move us so much? How do we understand what others feel or aim to do? What motivates us to help others and avoid harming them? Why are some of us highly empathic and others antisocial? Combining research in mice, rats, healthy human participants and patients, the lab is particularly interested in understanding the causal contribution of neurons involved in a subject’s own actions, sensations and emotions to social cognition, empathy and prosociality.

Psychiatric symptoms (or disorders) the group is interested in

The lab is particularly interested in disorders of social cognition, in particular abnormal empathy and antisocial behavior such as those encountered in antisocial personality, psychopathy, conduct disorders and autism spectrum disorders. In addition, the lab is interested in how perceiving the states of others interacts with atypical motor or affective experiences: would patients with contamination OCD experience witnessing others touch contaminated objects or wash their hands? How can the distress of others trigger PTSD? How could observing the state of others be used to help patients with OCD or PTSD?

Technical approaches

MRI in patients and controls together with quantifications of subjective experiences and perception have been core to our past work on patients. In addition, intracranial recordings in patients with implanted electrode (DBS, iEEG, ECoG) can be particularly informative. Neural recordings (neuropixel, calcium imaging etc.) of homologous brain regions in rodents and their neuromodulation (chemo/opto-genetics) can then be used to bring correlative observations in humans to causal mechanisms. For instance, in the past, observations of activity in the insula and cingulate while humans witness the pain of others, and reduced activity in these regions in patients with psychopathy has inspired recordings and deactivations of similar regions in rats, which have led to the discovery of a causal contribution of cingulate activity to empathy and prosociality.

Keywords: Empathy, prosocial, antisocial, action observation, pain, reward, social cognition, autism, psychopathy, disgust, OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, emotion,
 
RDoC research domains:
Negative valence: All mentioned
Postive valence: All mentioned
Cognitive systems: Attention and Perception
Social processes: Affiliation and Attachment, Social Communication, Perception and Understanding of others
Sensorimotor systems: Action Planning and Selection, Sensorimotor Dynamics
 
Disorders:
Antisocial Personality Disorder, Psychopathy, Conduct Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorders, PTSD, OCD.