The relationship between clinical insight and cognitive and affective empathy in schizophrenia

Atoui, Mia; Jamil, Fatima El; El‐Khoury, Joseph; Doumit, Mark; Syriani, Nathalie; Khani, Munir; Nahas, Ziad

doi:10.1016/j.scog.2018.02.004

Cited by 14 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Relatedly, deficits in CE and EE were found to be dissociable in a wide array of psychiatric conditions including schizophrenia [39], anti-social personality disorder [16], obsessive-compulsive disorder [40], and bipolar disorder [41].…”

Section: Emotional and Cognitive Empathymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The dissociation between EE and CE characterizes a wide range of psychiatric conditions [ 16 , 39 – 41 ]; therefore, future studies should explore the role of ED in other clinical conditions. In this regard, it should also be mentioned that although we suggest ED is related to clinical conditions, the CE-dominant ED group was not characterized by higher autism traits nor alexithymia.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Empathic disequilibrium in two different measures of empathy predicts autism traits in neurotypical population

Shalev

Uzefovsky

2020

Molecular Autism

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Background: Features of autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are normally distributed within the population, giving rise to the notion of the autism spectrum. One of the hallmark features of ASC is difficulties in social communication, which relies heavily on our ability to empathize with others. Empathy comprises of both cognitive (CE) and emotional (EE) components that, together, allow us to understand another's emotions and be affected by them appropriately, while maintaining a self-other distinction. Although CE and EE depend on distinct neural and developmental trajectories, it was suggested that the two empathic capacities can influence, balance, and regulate each other. Previous findings regarding the role of emotional and cognitive empathy in ASC have been mixed. Therefore, our study aimed to investigate whether the intra-personal empathy imbalance between the cognitive and emotional components, a measure we termed empathic disequilibrium (ED), can be associated with autism traits at the neurotypical range. Methods: Participants were 671 young-adults at the neurotypical range who self-reported their empathy, assessed using two highly validated questionnaires-the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and the Empathy Quotient, autism traits using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, and the related traits, alexithymia, and systemizing. Results: Controlling for the total empathy score, greater ED was found to be positively correlated with autism traits. Specifically, autism traits were found to be elevated in groups of individuals with relatively higher EE than CE, underscoring their imbalance. Conclusions: Our study offers a novel perspective on the understanding of the social difficulties associated with autism tendencies in the general population and has potentially important clinical implications for understanding of ASC. We also propose a novel characterization of autism tendencies based on the imbalance between EE and CE, which we term ED, as opposed to examining EE and CE separately.

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Section: Emotional and Cognitive Empathymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empathic disequilibrium in two different measures of empathy predicts autism traits in neurotypical population

Shalev

Uzefovsky

2020

Molecular Autism

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“…It is well known that the striatum is involved in multiple and heterogeneous functions, including in motor action and motivational, cognitive, and emotional processing (Di Martino et al, 2008; Graybiel and Grafton, 2015; Jarbo and Verstynen, 2015). The Fantasy subscale score is also known to be associated with striatal activity and morphology as follows: in terms of pathological findings accompanying high Fantasy subscale scores, the Fantasy subscale was reported as a unique positive predictor of awareness of mental illness (Atoui et al, 2018). Among the IRI subscales, only the Fantasy subscale was associated with an increased risk of delusions (Montag et al, 2012) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (Fontenelle et al, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Neural Correlates in Adopting a Realistic View: A Neural Structural and Functional Connectivity Study With Female Nurses

Ogino

Kawamichi

Kakeda

et al. 2019

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Empathizing leads to positive and negative consequences. To avoid empathy-induced distress, adopting a realistic view (dealing with a situation practically and efficiently independent of one’s emotional state) is important. We hypothesized that empathy-demanding professions (e.g., nursing) may require individuals to adopt a realistic view, which may demonstrate modulated neural structure and functional connectivity. We confirmed that female nurses showed a higher tendency, compared to controls, to adopt a realistic view, using the Fantasy subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; inverse scale of the realistic view). We then employed voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) to explore the neural underpinnings related to realistic view adoption. Nurses exhibited significantly lower gray-matter volume (GMV) in the right striatum. In multiple regression analysis, only the Fantasy subscale score showed a significant positive correlation with GMV within the striatum cluster. Moreover, nurses exhibited lower functional connectivity between the right striatum and the right lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), representing emotional regulation. These findings show that structural differences in the striatum correlated with the realistic view. Furthermore, lower functional connectivity between the striatum and lateral PFC suggests that nurses may use efficient coping strategies that may lessen the recruitment of effortful emotional regulation.

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“…This index probes four aspects of empathy: the tendency to transpose oneself into the state of fictitious characters (FS), personal tendencies to adopt another's point of view (PT), tendency to experience "other-oriented" feelings (EC), and tendency to feel distressed when faced with another's distress (PD). In line with a common practice in the field of empathy research (e.g., Atoui et al, 2018;Bock and Hosser, 2014;Harari et al, 2010;Hooker et al, 2010;Kerr-Gaffney et al, 2019) we combined FS and PT into the "cognitive empathy" factor and EC and PD into the "affective empathy" factor.…”

Section: Self-reported Body Ownershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electroencephalographic evidence for the involvement of mirror neuron and error monitoring related processes in virtual body ownership

Raz

Gurevitch

Vaknin

et al. 2019

Preprint

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The illusion that an artificial or virtual object becomes part of one's body has been demonstrated and productively investigated in the past two decades. Empirical and theoretical accounts of this phenomenon suggest that the body ownership illusion relies not on a single process, but rather on the alignment of the biological and the alternative bodies across multiple aspects. However, the portrayal of these aspects and the demarcation of their neurophysiological correlates has yet to be established.Our study examines electroencephalographic (EEG) markers of two extensively studied systems in the context of virtual body ownership illusion: the mirror neuron system (MNS) and the error monitoring system (EMS). We designed an experimental manipulation of brief involuntary virtual hand bounces, which triggers both systems, and examined how the response of EEG markers of these systems to this manipulation is modulated by three aspects of body ownership: agency, visuotactile synchronicity, and semantic congruence between the participant's hands and its virtual representation.We found evidence for enhanced MNS-related suppression of power at the Mu band in the synchronous and semantic congruence conditions. On the other hand, the EMS-related Pe/P300 wave was reduced by semantic congruence. This Pe/P300 effect was stronger among participants who exhibited higher acceptance of the spatial illusion and increased tendency for affective empathy. Mu power and Pe/P300 were not correlated, suggesting a dissociation between the distinct aspects of body ownership they probe. The findings suggest that synchronicity and semantic congruence induce sensorimotor sensitivity to the alternative body, whereas the latter parameter also buffers minor erroneous virtual motions. These neurophysiological markers may be added to the arsenal of body ownership probes, and integrated in VR rehabilitation protocols.

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The relationship between clinical insight and cognitive and affective empathy in schizophrenia

Abstract: Findings suggest that affective empathy is relatively intact across phases of illness whereas cognitive empathy abilities are compromised and could be targets for psychotherapy intervention.

Cited by 14 publications

References 64 publications

Empathic disequilibrium in two different measures of empathy predicts autism traits in neurotypical population

Empathic disequilibrium in two different measures of empathy predicts autism traits in neurotypical population

Exploring the Neural Correlates in Adopting a Realistic View: A Neural Structural and Functional Connectivity Study With Female Nurses

Electroencephalographic evidence for the involvement of mirror neuron and error monitoring related processes in virtual body ownership

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