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• This study investigated the autistic traits of parents and their children in the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) groups and revealed the relationship between them. • The autistic traits of ASD children were significantly higher than those of the TD children; however, autistic traits were similar between parents in two groups. • The correlations of autistic traits between parents and children were only significant for the TD group but not for the ASD group. • The relationship of autistic traits between parents and children exists in the TD group, and that the Autism-Spectrum Quotient may be used for parents as a screening aid to identify children who should be further screened for autistic traits. Although parents with a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have usually been identified as having the "broader autism phenotype", empirical research on the differences in autistic-like characteristics between parents with and without ASD children has yielded inconsistent results. This survey of the autistic traits of parents and children was conducted in 119 parents with ASD children and 108 parents with typically developing (TD) children. Parents' autistic traits were quantified using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient and children's autistic traits were quantified using the Autism Spectrum Quotient—Children's Version. The autistic traits of ASD children were significantly higher than those of the TD children; however, autistic traits were similar between parents in the two groups. Furthermore, the correlations of autistic traits between parents and children were only significant for the TD group and not for the ASD group. The current findings indicate that the relationship of autistic traits between parents and children exists in the TD group, and that the Autism-Spectrum Quotient may be used for parents as a screening aid to identify children who should be further screened for autistic traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Individuals who suffered emotional neglect in childhood have reduced emotional empathy. • A history of emotional neglect leads individuals to exhibit reduced psychophysiological responses to others' pain, which is reflected in the reduction of early empathetic neural responses. • The neural mechanisms involved in emotional sharing were influenced by social relationships, which might mediate the racial biases exhibited in individual behaviors. Emotional neglect during childhood was associated with adverse long-term consequences for mental health and may impact neural responses by altering the trajectories of brain development. Pain empathy, a crucial social adaptive ability that recognizes and understands another person's pain, was found to be correlated with early developmental experiences. However, the impact of emotional neglect on neural responses related to pain empathy remains inadequately explored. Utilizing childhood trauma questionnaires and event-related potential (ERP), the electrical response of the brain to a specific stimulus, this study investigated the impact of emotional neglect experiences on pain empathy neural responses among 62 Chinese college students. The results of correlation analysis demonstrated a significant association between childhood emotional neglect scores and the empathic N2 responses (defined as pain minus non-pain conditions), representing the early emotional sharing process of pain empathy. The findings clarified the effects of specific forms of traumatic experiences on individuals' social functioning and laid the foundation for further exploring the impact of trauma on neural responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pain is typically expressed through various sensory (e.g., visual and auditory) modalities: the human voice conveys information about social and affective communication. While the empathic responses to others' pain in the visual modality are modulated by top-down attention constraints, it remains unclear whether empathy for such expressions in the auditory modality also involves such top-down modulation mechanisms. Therefore, the present study investigates how neural correlates of empathic processes to others' vocal pain are modulated by the task-instructed attention manipulations. Each participant completed the following three tasks: (1) Pain Judgment Task, in which participants were instructed to pay attention to pain cues in vocal stimuli, (2) Gender Judgment Task, in which participants were instructed to pay attention to non-pain cues in vocal stimuli; (3) Passive Listening Task, a control task in which participants were instructed to passively listen to the vocal stimuli without any required response. The earlier frontal-central N1 response to either others' painful or neutral voice was greater in the Pain Judgment Task than in the other two tasks, suggesting a general attention modulation on the bottom-up sensory processing of vocal stimuli. The frontal-central P2 responses to others' painful voices was greater in the Pain Judgment Task than in the other two tasks, but not to others' neutral voices, thus suggesting selective attention modulation on the P2 response to others' pain. Late positive complex (LPC) to others' painful and neutral voices differed significantly regardless of task manipulations, thus suggesting empathic pain modulation on LPC response. All these results demonstrated top-down attention modulation on affective sharing responses others' vocal pain, but not on cognitive appraisal process of others' vocal pain. • Attention modulation on behavioral and neural responses to others' vocal pain was identified. • A pain-specific attention modulation on the P2 responses to others' painful voices was found. • P2 responses for painful voices elicited in the Pain Judgment Task were enlarged compared to those in the other tasks. • Attention modulation on others' pain in the auditory modality was reflected in the affective aspects of empathy for pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]