Cortical thickness of neural substrates supporting cognitive empathy in individuals with schizophrenia

Abstract

Background Cognitive empathy is supported by the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), anterior mid-cingulate cortex (aMCC), insula (INS), supplementary motor area (SMA), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), and precuneus (PREC). In healthy controls, cortical thickness in these regions has been linked to cognitive empathy. As cognitive empathy is impaired in schizophrenia, we examined whether reduced cortical thickness in these regions was associated with poorer cognitive empathy in this population. Methods 41 clinically-stable community-dwelling individuals with schizophrenia and 46 healthy controls group-matched on demographic variables completed self-report empathy questionnaires, a cognitive empathy task, and structural magnetic resonance imaging. We examined between-group differences in study variables using t-tests and analyses of variance. Next, we used Pearson correlations to evaluate the relationship between cognitive empathy and cortical thickness in the mPFC, IFG, aMCC, INS, SMA, TPJ, and PREC in both groups. Results Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrated cortical thinning in the IFG, INS, SMA, TPJ, and PREC (all p<0.05) and impaired cognitive empathy across all measures (all p<0.01) relative to controls. While cortical thickness in the mPFC, IFC, aMCC, and INS (all p<0.05) was related to cognitive empathy in controls, we did not observe these relationships in individuals with schizophrenia (all p>0.10). Conclusions Individuals with schizophrenia have reduced cortical thickness in empathy-related neural regions and significant impairments in cognitive empathy. Interestingly, cortical thickness was related to cognitive empathy in controls but not in the schizophrenia group. We discuss other mechanisms that may account for cognitive empathy impairment in schizophrenia.

Multimodal Discrimination of Schizophrenia Using Hybrid Weighted Feature Concatenation of Brain Functional Connectivity and Anatomical Features with an Extreme Learning Machine

“…However, in terms of ranking importance, functional connectivity information showed slightly superior performance than structural information, and with regard to structural information, cortical information was superior to subcortical information in classification performance. Taken together, it appears that aberrant functional connectivity and structural abnormalities in the cortex should be given more weight, which is in line with recent research findings (Dong et al, 2017 ; Larivière et al, 2017 ; Massey et al, 2017 ; Mørch-Johnsen et al, 2017 ; Peters et al, 2017 ).…”

The Effect of High-Definition Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Right Inferior Frontal Gyrus on Empathy in Healthy Individuals

“…In recent years brain lesion and imaging studies have been widely used to explore the neural mechanisms that underlie empathy. Research has shown that cognitive empathy is generally supported by the activation of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), right temporoparietal junction (TPJ), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), supplementary motor area and anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC; Völlm et al, 2006 ; Schulte-Rüther et al, 2007 , 2008 ; Hooker et al, 2008 , 2010 ; Massey et al, 2017 ) while emotional empathy involves the activation of brain regions such as the IFC, anterior insula (INS), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and superior temporal sulci (STS; Schulte-Rüther et al, 2008 ; Shamay-Tsoory et al, 2009 ; Shamay-Tsoory, 2011 ; Leigh et al, 2013 ; Oishi et al, 2015 ). Shamay-Tsoory et al ( 2009 ) found that patients who have suffered damage to the ventral MPFC experience low levels of cognitive empathy and that those who have sustained damage to the IFC exhibit low levels of emotional empathy.…”

“…Moreover, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of the neural mechanisms underlying empathy are extensive. Massey et al ( 2017 ) found that the cortical thickness of the mPFC, right IFG, aMCC, INS and left TPJ in healthy subjects is significantly associated with cognitive empathy. Pfeifer et al ( 2008 ) found the significant activation of the right IFG, right INS and right amygdala in children during engagement in empathic behavior and showed that the activation of the right IFG is significantly associated with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), a self-reported empathy questionnaire.…”

“…The most widely used self-reported scale is the IRI scale (Davis, 1980 ), which measures both cognitive and emotional empathy. However, during engagement in empathic behavioral tasks, most tasks cannot measure cognitive and emotional empathy simultaneously, as they typically measured a single form of empathy like cognitive empathy (Baron-Cohen et al, 2001 ; Smith et al, 2015 ; Mai et al, 2016 ; Massey et al, 2017 ; Oliver et al, 2018 ) and emotional empathy (Derntl et al, 2012 ; Smith et al, 2014 ). To address this limitation, Dziobek et al ( 2008 ) developed a new measure of empathy, the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET), which is designed to measure both cognitive and emotional empathy.…”

“…From the above studies we know that the IFG (particularly the right IFG) plays an important role in empathy (Lawrence et al, 2006 ; Schulte-Rüther et al, 2007 , 2008 ; Pfeifer et al, 2008 ; Massey et al, 2017 ; Nobusako et al, 2017 ). Thus, we can explore the relationship between changes in IFG activity and empathic ability through HD-tDCS, and changes in empathy as a result of HD-tDCS may be further assessed by using the MET-C.…”