Rilling

James Rilling, at Emory University in Atlanta, US, has been using brain imaging techniques to investigate the biological mechanisms behind co-operation.

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Rilling and his students Rilling, 1977 showed that most of the byproducts of discrimination learning, and in particular aggressive emotional behavior, also occur following errorless learning.7

Handbook of Stress Leo Goldberger 1993

Compared with those of chimps, bonobo brains displayed bigger, more developed regions thought to be vital for feeling empathy, perceiving distress in others and feeling anxiety, Rilling said.

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Even more notably, Rilling said, bonobo brains carry a thick connection between a flash point of emotion and a higher brain region that helps control impulses.

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The thicker connection in bonobos may explain why the animals are "better at regulating aggressive impulses and better at avoiding anti-social behavior," said Rilling, who published the study in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

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But "this pathway does not function very well in people who are psychopaths, people with conduct disorder, people who don't take others' feelings into consideration," Rilling said.

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By combining the images, "you can get at circuits in the brain, how the brain is organized," Rilling said.

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One of these structures, the right anterior insula, is crucial for generating empathy, as people with damage to this region notably lack the ability to perceive how others are feeling, Rilling said.

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Although the study offers tantalizing glimpses into the social evolution of the two species, Rilling acknowledged that the small number of brains he scanned means the results are preliminary.

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This brain region triggers the release of stress hormones and is "strongly implicated" in response to fear and anxiety, Rilling noted.

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