Cognitive and affective empathy in depression linked to executive control

Thoma, Patrizia; Zalewski, Iwona; Reventlow, H. Graf von; Norra, Christine; Juckel, Georg; Daum, Irene

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2011.07.030

Cited by 117 publications

(94 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Abnormalities in emotion recognition are central to numerous psychiatric conditions including ASD [96][97][98][99][100] and deficits in OT and insular cortex activity and connectivity are well documented correlates of symptom severity for many of these conditions 46,101,102 . Our results suggest that disruption of insula function may be key to pathophysiology in behaviors that depend upon social decisions regarding the emotions of others.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insular Cortex Mediates Approach and Avoidance Responses to Social Affective Stimuli

Rogers

Varela

Gribbons

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Social animals detect the affective states of others and utilize this information to orchestrate appropriate social interactions. Social affective behaviors include cooperation, reproductive acts and avoiding sick individuals. In a social affective behavioral test in which experimental adult male rats were given the choice to interact with either naive or stressed conspecifics, the experimental rats demonstrated both approach and avoidant behaviors towards the conspecific, depending upon the age of the conspecific; experimental adult rats approached the stressed juvenile but avoided the stressed adult. Optogenetic inhibition of the insular cortex, a region anatomically positioned to contribute to social cognition, disrupted these behaviors. Receptors for the social nonapeptide oxytocin (OT) are found in high density within the insular cortex and here oxytocin increased intrinsic excitability and synaptic efficacy in acute insular cortex slices. Blockade of oxytocin receptors (OTRs) in the insula eliminated the effect of conspecific stress on approach behavior, while insular administration of OT recapitulated the behaviors typically observed in response to stressed conspecifics. Network analysis using Fos immunoreactivity identified functional connectivity between the insular cortex and the network of regions involved in social decision making. These results implicate insular cortex as a novel target of OT and suggest that insula is a key component in the circuit underlying age-dependent social responses to stressed conspecifics.Social animals, including humans, have an enormous repertoire of behavioral expressions that provide for the transmission of one's affective state to other members of the group 1-3 . Sensory and perceptive systems in the "social decision-making network" (SDMN) which consists of the social brain network 4 and the mesolimbic reward system 5 allow one to appraise these social stimuli and integrate them with past experiences, situational, and somatic factors to shape specific behavioral responses 6 . In addition to the SDMN, growing evidence implicates insular cortex in responding to socioemotional stimuli in humans. When tasked to identify the emotion of another from a facial expression, or to observe another suffer a painful stimulation, a reliable neural correlate is relative increase in the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal in the insular cortex 7,8 . Accordingly, emotion recognition and empathic deficits have been reported among individuals with insular cortex lesions [9][10][11][12] . Empathic processes are also disrupted in autism spectrum 1 Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA 2 These authors made equal contributions to this work. *Corresponding Author: John P. Christianson, Department of Psychology, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 USA, Email: j.christianson@bc.edu, Phone: +1-617-552-3970.A note about the preprint. This manuscript was submitted to bioRxiv.org after multiple rounds of peer review. The manuscrip...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insular Cortex Mediates Approach and Avoidance Responses to Social Affective Stimuli

Rogers

Varela

Gribbons

et al. 2017

Preprint

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“…With respect to affective empathy, some studies reported that patients with MDD showed a significantly higher level of PD compared to controls (12,30,31). Batson et al (4) hypothesized that the emotional pain associated with empathic distress may cause depressed individuals to show less EC.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationship between empathic responding and its clinical characteristics in patients with major depressive disorder

Ekinci¹,

Ekinci²

2016

Dusunen Adam

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Relationship between empathic responding and its clinical characteristics in patients with major depressive disorder Objective: To our knowledge, there is no study specifically examining the relation between empathic responding and clinical features in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Our aim was to examine cognitive and affective empathic responding in patients with MDD and to explore the possible relations between clinical features and empathy. Method:The sociodemographic and clinical properties of 83 patients with major depression were recorded. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was used to assess severity of depression, whereas the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) was used to assess anxiety. Hopelessness level was measured by Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS). Patients' empathic ability was evaluated by using the Interpersonel Reactivity Index (IRI), and results were compared with 85 healthy controls. We used Pearson correlation and general linear model analysis to evaluate the manner in which the variables contributed to the IRI scores.Results: Perspective Taking (IRI-PT), Empathic Concern (IRI-EC), and Fantasy (IRI-FS) subscores were all substantially lower in subjects with depression than in healthy controls, while the Personal Distress (IRI-PD) subscore was higher than in healthy subjects. There were significant effects of gender on the scores of IRI-EC and IRI-FS. Lower IRI-FS and IRI-PD scores were found to be significantly related to high suicide risk in depression.Conclusion: Based on our results, patients with major depressive disorder show significantly impaired empathy measures compared to the normal population. Our findings also suggest a close relationship between suicidality and empathy in patients with MDD.Keywords: Empathy, gender, hopelessness, major depressive disorder, suicide ÖZET Majör depresif bozukluğu olan hastalarda empati yanıtı ve klinik özelliklerle ilişkisiAmaç: Bildiğimiz kadarıyla majör depresif bozukluklu hastalarda empatik cevaplarla klinik özellikler arasındaki ilişkiyi araştıran herhangi bir çalışma yoktur. Amacımız majör depresif bozukluklu hastalarda duygusal ve bilişsel empati cevabını değerlendirmek ve empatinin klinik özelliklerle olan muhtemel ilişkisini araştırmaktır. Sonuç: Bulgularımıza dayanarak depresif bozukluklu hastalarda normal popülasyona göre anlamlı olarak bozulmuş empati ölçümleri olduğu söylenebilir. Ayrıca bulgularımız depresif olgularda intihar ve empati arasında yakın bir ilişki olduğuna işaret etmektedir.

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“…Self-acceptance has been the most frequently mentioned criterion of well-being and is closely related to mental health (Ryff, 1989). Furthermore, previous studies have indicated that personal distress is closely related with depression (O'Connor, Berry, Weiss, & Gilbert, 2002;Thoma, Zalewski, von Reventlow, Norra, Juckel, & Daum, 2011), neuroticism (Bartholow, Sestir, & Davis, 2005;Lee, 2009), and alexithymia (Grynberg, Luminet, Corneille, Grèzes, & Berthoz 2010). Taken together, personal distress is thought to be an effective indicator of mental health.…”

Section: Effect Of Personal Distress On Psychological Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationships between Trait Empathy and Psychological Well-Being in Japanese University Students

Choi¹,

Minote²,

Sekiya³

et al. 2016

PSYCH

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The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) is a commonly used instrument for measuring individual differences in trait empathy. It is composed of the following four subscales: Perspective taking; fantasy; empathic concern; and personal distress. Previous studies have reported finding a positive relationship between psychological well-being and perspective taking, but little remains known about the association between psychological well-being and the other IRI subscales. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the degree to which each IRI subscale could predict psychological well-being, which was measured using Ryff's Psychological Well-Being Scales, in 119 Japanese undergraduate and graduate students (43 females, 76 males; mean age: 22 years; age range: 19 -25 years). Regression analysis revealed that perspective taking positively predicted personal growth, purpose in life, and environmental mastery, while personal distress negatively predicted autonomy, environmental mastery, and self-acceptance. Neither fantasy nor empathic concern predicted psychological well-being. These results support those found in previous studies, and suggest that perspective taking, a cognitive component of empathy, plays an important role in the improvement of psychological well-being.

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Cognitive and affective empathy in depression linked to executive control

Cited by 117 publications

References 28 publications

Insular Cortex Mediates Approach and Avoidance Responses to Social Affective Stimuli

Insular Cortex Mediates Approach and Avoidance Responses to Social Affective Stimuli

Relationship between empathic responding and its clinical characteristics in patients with major depressive disorder

Relationships between Trait Empathy and Psychological Well-Being in Japanese University Students

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