They did, however, show a surge of activity in the reward centre of the brain - the nucleus accumbens.
Isn't this like getting 16 women with a negative response out of 16 trials, and getting 16 men with a positive response out of 16 trials. By simple chance wouldn't the odds of that be 1 out of 231? Here's the abstract:
Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others
The neural processes underlying empathy are a subject of intense interest within the social neurosciences1, 2, 3. However, very little is known about how brain empathic responses are modulated by the affective link between individuals. We show here that empathic responses are modulated by learned preferences, a result consistent with economic models of social preferences4, 5, 6, 7. We engaged male and female volunteers in an economic game, in which two confederates played fairly or unfairly, and then measured brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging while these same volunteers observed the confederates receiving pain. Both sexes exhibited empathy-related activation in pain-related brain areas (fronto-insular and anterior cingulate cortices) towards fair players. However, these empathy-related responses were significantly reduced in males when observing an unfair person receiving pain. This effect was accompanied by increased activation in reward-related areas, correlated with an expressed desire for revenge. We conclude that in men (at least) empathic responses are shaped by valuation of other people's social behaviour, such that they empathize with fair opponents while favouring the physical punishment of unfair opponents, a finding that echoes recent evidence for altruistic punishment.
This is very elementary statistics. Stat 101. Or even Psych 101 teaches statistical hypothesis testing. It has nothing to do with odds. ;) You might find a more layman's explanation on google or yahoo.com If you'd like, I can explain it a little more. Just let me know. I also taught statisics as a grad student.
http://www.physics.csbsju.edu/stats/t-test.html
http://www.texasoft.com/winkpair.html
I was going to locate the article in Nature from my University of WA library account and I can't find the specific article to find. This is very curious that they don't list the exact reference. Sounds like MSM to me! If you tell which journal it is, I can locate it.