OREANDA-NEWS Scientists at Boston College and the University of Albany have established a link between advanced imagination and altruism as part of their scientific work. The ability to represent situations is directly related to empathy, according to EurekAlert. 

The team investigated two separate areas of the brain with different functions: the right temporal-parietal junction — a key area that participates in the presentation of other people's minds, and a subsystem of the medial temporal lobe, which supports the simulation of imaginary scenes. According to the co-author of the study, Laina Young, evidence has been found that these parts of the main organ of the nervous system are connected. 

A study of the brain has shown that when a person imagines a scene of help, neural activity has shown a general willingness to help. Scientists suggest that the effect may be associated with “inflation of imagination” - a phenomenon when an individual uses the capabilities of his imagination to assess the likelihood of certain events. In other words, modeling the situation makes a person choose a more altruistic behavior.