evidence: The researchers had an a priori hypothesis that there would be involvement of the amygdala and insula for empathy. Thus, they used a region of interest (ROI) analysis for the bilateral amygdala and insula. The authors found that older adults with higher levels of emotional empathy outside the scanner on the Multifaceted Empathy Test showed greater deactivation in both the bilateral amygdala and the right insula while completing the N-back task (the measure of working memory). This suggests that older adults with higher emotional empathy in response to others may show decreased activation in regions relevant to emotional empathy (amygdala and insula) when experiencing greater working memory load. The authors suggest that, in this case, the amygdala may be playing a role in working memory and cognitive control and that individuals who experience high empathy may potentially experience more efficient emotion regulation in the same brain regions as those that are important for working memory. [...] Consistent with the Riva and colleagues study (33), Chen and colleagues found that older adults showed less activity than younger adults in the right AI in response to empathizing with others’ physical pain and that greater averseness to others’ pain was positively associated with activity in the anterior mid-cingulate cortex. These findings are consistent with two brain regions that have been implicated in the experience of empathy towards the pain of others in studies of younger adults, the AI and anterior cingulate (12, 76–79). [...] Jennifer Streiffer Mascaro, Emory University, United StatesSina Radke, RWTH Aachen Universität, Germany