Martha Farah, PhD, at the University of Pennsylvania, a cognitive neuroscientist and neuroethicist who was not affiliated with the study, says learning how empathic responses influence our behavior in many different situations is interesting both practically and theoretically. Christian Keysers of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, lead author of the study, undertaken in Groningen, Netherlands. Breastfeeding mothers tend to do both of those things, said lead study author Ben Gibbs.