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New research from the University of Birmingham suggests about a third of us have more than an emotional response when we see people in pain. Some people actually feel the pain themselves.

More than that the scientists believe that if these people are shown a picture of a diver accidentally hitting their head on the diving board then this group of people will actually feel the pain in their own head.

The researchers have discovered this by showing pictures of various injuries to volunteers while scanning their brains. This is a scan of the brains of two different subjects who are looking at pictures of injured people. The coloured areas show brain activity.

Both are having an emotional response but notice the difference. The red area we've ringed in the top scan is activity in the brain's pain centre. It's not in the bottom scan. The subject in the top scan is having an emotional response and feeling pain too.

In evolutionary terms this makes sense. An emotional response to seeing someone in pain helps us understand they are in a situation we should avoid in future. Adding in pain as well is just icing on the evolutionary cake.

Psychologist admitted to me he and his team were surprised so many people experienced pain just from seeing images of crunching football tackles and the like. Further questioning revealed these people take care when watching the news and also tend to avoid horror films. More seriously in the long term this research will help scientists understand more about people who are living with chronic pain.

In the meantime here are some of the pictures the researchers used. You'll have to click on the links if you chose to look at them. View image, View image, View image Be warned they're not pleasant to look at, but for one in three of us they're even harder to deal with. And all those people on the news slipping over on the icy pavements aren't that funny either.

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