Ever literally¹ felt somebody else's pain? You're not alone, with new research showing some people do have a physical reaction to others' injuries.

British researchers used brain-imaging technology to show that people who say they feel the pain of others have heightened activity in pain-sensing brain regions when they see someone else being hurt.

For the study, the researchers exposed 108 college students to images of painful situations, ranging from athletes suffering sports injuries and patients receiving an injection.

Nearly a third said that, for at least one image, they not only had an emotional reaction, but also fleetingly² felt pain in the same site as the injury in the image.

The researchers found that while viewing the painful images, both people who said they felt pain and those who did not showed activity in the emotional centers of the brain.

But those who said they felt pain showed greater activity in pain-related brain regions compared with the others, and as compared with their own brain responses to the emotional images.

"Patients with functional³ pain experience pain in the absence of an obvious disease or injury to explain their pain," Dr. Stuart Derbyshire of the University of Birmingham, one of the researchers, told reporters.

"We think this confirms that at least some people have an actual physical reaction when observing others being injured or expressing pain," Derbyshire said.

He noted⁴ that the people who reported feeling pain also tended to say that they avoided horror movies and disturbing images on the news "so as to avoid being in pain".

The findings were published in the December issue of the journal Pain.

你曾经“切身”感受到别人的痛苦是吗？不止你一人这样，一项最新研究表明，有些人对他人的伤痛确实会产生生理反应。

英国研究人员通过大脑成像技术发现，那些称自己感受到别人痛苦的人在看到别人受伤时，自己脑部的疼痛感应区域的活动会加强。

研究人员让108名大学生观看一些痛苦场景的照片，如运动员经受运动创伤，以及病人接受注射等等。

近三分之一的调查对象称，至少有一张画面让他们不仅在情绪上有反应，而且自己身体与画面中人物伤痛的相同部位也有短暂疼痛感。

研究人员发现，在看这些痛苦画面时，称自己感到疼痛的和未感到疼痛的人在大脑的情感反应区域都有活动。

不过有痛感反应的人的大脑疼痛反应区域的活动比其他人活跃，与他们自己在看到情感性画面的大脑反应相比也是如此。

其中一名研究人员、伯明翰大学的斯图亚特?德比舍尔博士在接受记者采访时说：“有‘功能性’疼痛经历的患者并没有明显的疾病或创伤，但却有疼痛感。”

德比舍尔说：“我想这一研究证明了至少有些人在看到他人受伤或表现出疼痛时，自己确实会有生理反应。”

他指出，那些有痛感反应的调查对象还有一个特点，他们会尽量避免看恐怖电影和新闻报道中可怕的画面，“从而避免自己也跟着痛苦”。

该研究在《疼痛》杂志12月刊上发表。