A new study published in NeuroImage found that separate neural pathways are used alternately for empathetic and analytic problem solving. The study compares it to a see-saw. When you’re busy empathizing, the neural network for analysis is repressed, and this switches according to the task at hand.

Cool finding and, as Colleen Park writes in Popular Science, this might explain why the cold CEO fires people emotionlessly because he’s thinking analytically—for profit.