Multiple brain systems are engaged when we try to understand people's emotions, including parts of the sensorimotor cortex associated with motor simulation. Simulation-related brain activity is described as a 'low-level' component of empathy - however its contribution to complex empathic judgments is unclear.

A new Study by Shir Genzer from Dr. Anat Perry lab, published in Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience, investigated this question and examined the association between empathic accuracy, the ability to accurately infer the emotional states of others, and mu rhythm suppression, an EEG index of sensorimotor cortex-based simulation. Specifically, they investigated how different information channels (visual information, audio information and their combination) effect the association between mu rhythm suppression and empathic accuracy.

The results from two experiments (one with US sample and the other with Israeli sample) indicated that sensorimotor representations play a role not only in low-level motor simulation, but also in higher-level inferences about others' emotions, especially when visual cues are crucial for accuracy.

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