75) with the progressive development of PD (Huang et al. 2013); (2) compared to the satiated state, rsFC in this pathway (and several others) increases when smokers are in withdrawal; (3) rsFC in this pathway (and several others) is stronger in smokers in withdrawal than in nonsmoking controls; and (4) during withdrawal rsFC in this pathway (and several others) correlates with the intensity of WIC (r = 0.64). These Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical data suggest that the development of nicotine addiction may be associated with the development of neural adaptations that support the experience of craving during nicotine withdrawal. These results are consistent with the predictions of the sensitization–homeostasis theory (8, 9). Acknowledgments The project

described was funded by an ISTART granted to Drs. J. R. A1210477 DiFranza and J. King by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and was supported by an award from the Department of Radiology, University of Massachusetts Medical School and National Institutes of Health grant P30HD004147. All authors have no financial relationships relevant to this article. We

would like Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical to acknowledge Dr. K. Cauley, Clinical Director of the Advanced MRI Center who provided clinical readings of the MRIs. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the UMASS Department of Radiology or Advanced MR Imaging Center. The authors thank Suzanne Czerniak for Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical her technical advice on the methods used in this paper. Conflict of Interest All authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Empathy is an essential part of social behavior. It allows us to understand others by inferring and sharing their feeling states in reference to ourselves (Decety and Moriguchi

Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical 2007) and is considered imperative to many forms of adaptive social interaction (Spinella 2005). Despite well-established evidence of impaired interpersonal functioning among individuals with posttraumatic Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical stress disorder (PTSD) (Olatunji et al. 2007), to date little work has examined deficits in social cognitive functioning, including empathy, in this population (Nietlisbach et al. 2010; Sharp et al. 2012; Nazarov et al. 2013). Org 27569 Here, we investigate empathic responding in a sample of women with PTSD following repeated childhood trauma (including neglect, physical and/or emotional and/or sexual abuse). Predominant theoretical models of empathy propose that it is multidimensional and integrative in nature, consisting of both cognitive (i.e., inferring the thoughts and intentions of others using intellectual processes, often referred to as mentalizing) and emotional (i.e., feeling the affect and pain of others) components (Davis 1983; Rankin et al. 2005). The neural network associated with empathic functioning supports this multidimensional model and includes cognitive (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), memory (e.g., hippocampus; temporal poles; anterior and posterior cingulate), and affective systems (e.g.