Happiness pills

2024

installation with a cake made from paracetamol

Paracetamol (aceteminophen), a physical painkiller also reduces empathy for other people's suffering. Recent research* suggests that the experience of physical pain and empathy has a more similar neurochemical basis than previously assumed. It reduces affective reactivity to other people's experiences.

*Based on the website of the U.S. National Center of the Biotechnology:

Researchers Dominik Mischkowski, Jennifer Crocker, and Baldwin M. Way from Ohio State University discovered in 2016 that acetaminophen (Paracetamol) blunts physical and social pain by reducing activation in brain areas (i.e. anterior insula and anterior cingulate) thought to be related to emotional awareness and motivation. Some neuroimaging research on positive empathy (i.e., the perception and sharing of positive affect in other people) suggests that the experience of positive empathy also recruits these paralimbic cortical brain areas. They thus hypothesised that acetaminophen may also impair affective processes related to the experience of positive empathy. They tested this hypothesis in a double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment. Specifically, they administered 1,000 mg acetaminophen or a placebo and measured effects on different measures of positive empathy while participants read scenarios about the uplifting experiences of other people. Results showed that acetaminophen reduced personal pleasure and other-directed empathic feelings in response to these scenarios.