Christian Keysers is a French and German

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, Biological neural network, n ...

Education and career

He finished his school education at the European School, Munich and studied

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

and

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditar ...

at the University of Konstanz, the Ruhr University Bochum,

University of Massachusetts Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a public research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus University of Massac ...

, the Shepens eye research Institute of the

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools ...

as well as with

Marvin Minsky Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, a ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

. He then started his research career at the

University of St Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

by investigating cells in the

temporal cortex The temporal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The temporal lobe is located beneath the lateral fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain. The temporal lobe is involved in p ...

with

David Perrett David Ian Perrett FBA FRSE (born 11 April 1954) is a professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where he leads the Perception Lab. The main focus in his team's research is on face perception, including facial cues to he ...

, and described cells that respond when the monkey views particular faces in a way that correlates with conscious perception. After that, he moved to the University of Parma where he was part of the team that discovered auditory

mirror neurons A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Such neurons ha ...

in the

frontal cortex The frontal lobe is the largest of the four major lobes of the brain in mammals, and is located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere (in front of the parietal lobe and the temporal lobe). It is parted from the parietal lobe by a groove ...

of the macaque monkey. He then expanded the notion of mirror neurons to emotions and sensations, by showing that your

somatosensory cortex In physiology, the somatosensory system is the network of neural structures in the brain and body that produce the perception of touch ( haptic perception), as well as temperature ( thermoception), body position ( proprioception), and pain. It ...

is active not only when you are being touched, but also if you see someone else being touched, and that the

insular cortex The insular cortex (also insula and insular lobe) is a portion of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus (the fissure separating the temporal lobe from the parietal and frontal lobes) within each hemisphere of the mammalian ...

is active not only if people feel disgusted, but also if they see someone else being disgusted. Together this indicated a general principle in which people process the actions, sensations and emotions of others by vicariously activating their own actions, sensations and emotions. Jointly, this work laid the foundation of the neuroscientific investigation of

empathy Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, cog ...

. In 2004, Keysers and collaborator Gazzola opened th
Social Brain Lab
at the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Founded in 1614, the university is the ...

where they provided evidence for abnormal activity in somatosensory, motor and limbic brain structures in patients with abnormal empathy and that rats experience distress when they witnessed another animal in distress. This showed that rats can experience

emotional contagion Emotional contagion is a form of social contagion that involves the spontaneous spread of emotions and related behaviors. Such emotional convergence can happen from one person to another, or in a larger group. Emotions can be shared across indivi ...

, a predecessor of

In 2010, Keysers moved to the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN) where he is currently a department head and leads th
Social Brain Lab
together with

Valeria Gazzola. He is also a full professor at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other bein ...

. His team uncovered a mechanism responsible for emotional contagion by showing that rats have neurons in the cingulate cortex, a region involved in

nociception Nociception (also nocioception, from Latin ''nocere'' 'to harm or hurt') is the sensory nervous system's process of encoding noxious stimuli. It deals with a series of events and processes required for an organism to receive a painful stimulus, ...

, that respond both when a rat experiences pain and when it witnesses another animal experience pain, providing the first systematic evidence for the presence of emotional

mirror neuron A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Such neurons ha ...

s in the mammalian brain. Deactivating this brain region greatly reduced

. The team also showed that rats are averse to harming other rats, and that this also depends on the same region of the cingulate cortex. He has recently published a book called 'The Empathic Brain'.

Awards and grants

Christian Keysers has received the

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientif ...

consolidator grant, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Excellence Grant of the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...

, and the VICI grant of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. He is a recipient of the Marie Curie Excellence Award and is a member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

and a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science

References

External links

Website of the social brain lab at the NIN
*
Website for the book The Empathic Brain
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keysers, Christian Living people 1973 births Alumni of the European Schools French neuroscientists German neuroscientists University of Konstanz alumni University of Massachusetts Boston alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni University of Parma faculty University of Amsterdam faculty Members of Academia Europaea Fellows of the Association for Psychological Science Studienstiftung alumni