BIAL Foundation finances Lusófona University project

The main objective of The Empathic Heart project is to characterize the interaction between interoceptive processing and empathy, using the influential model of predictive processing to understand the relationship between the two constructs. To test this model, neurophysiological measures will be used (cardiac evoked potentials and event-related potentials) that directly index brain responses related to interoception and the various domains of empathy.

The creation of a new model of empathy, biologically robust and with a central role for interoceptive processing, will be widely useful to understand human behavior more broadly, including the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the clinical conditions associated with deficits of empathy and/or interception.

The project team, led by Carlos Campos on behalf of the HEI-Lab of Lusófona University, includes the participation of Simone Schütz-Bosbach (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), an international researcher specialized in the neural mechanisms of interoception, and the collaboration of several research centers in the city of Porto.