Why do movies make us weep, laugh, gasp? To understand why you care about the actors, let’s begin with what happens in your brain when you are in pain. Imagine that someone stabs your hand with a syringe needle. There’s no single place in the brain where that pain is processed. Instead, the event activates several different areas of the brain, all operating in concert. This network is summarized as the pain matrix. Here’s the surprising part: the pain matrix is crucial to how we connect with others. If you watch somebody else get stabbed, most of your pain matrix becomes activated. Not those
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