Neural correlates of empathic accuracy in adolescence

Kral, Tammi R A; Solis, Enrique; Mumford, Jeanette A.; Schuyler, Brianna; Flook, Lisa; Rifken, Katharine; Patsenko, Elena G.; Davidson, Richard J.

doi:10.1093/scan/nsx099

Cited by 34 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…These areas are associated with perspective taking or ToM [69] and partly overlap with the default mode network (DMN) [35]. We propose that higher activity in these areas reflects perspective-taking processes [30], which are neces-sary to understand speaker intention in the affective dialogues. On the other hand, understanding speaker intention is not necessary when following informative or the direct dialogues, neither of which activated the ToM network, even when compared to baseline.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Recent meta analyses have shown that the DMN overlaps with ToM areas in humans [1,35] and macaques [35] and that the precuneus, together with the dmPFC, is associated with perspective taking, as well as self-referential and autobiographical processing [1]. When adolescents are tracking other people's feelings, activity in the precuneus correlates with performance accuracy [30], and empathy training in adolescents results in strengthened connectivity between the precuneus and the vmPFC [31]. Finally, the precuneus is more engaged during indirect compared to direct speech processing in adult listeners [5,22,27,55,56].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given that, in the current study, experience sharing was neither necessary nor sufficient for understanding speaker intention, we did not anticipate activity in those areas. In fact, Kral et al [30] found that when adolescents had to infer someone's feelings, they were more accurate when they activated areas involved in perspective taking (including the mPFC, precuneus, superior temporal sulcus, and right temporoparietal junction) than areas relevant for experience sharing. The discrepancy between ours and previous findings might also be due to the fact that our dialogues did not include extensive contextual information which could have given rise to experience sharing as an epiphenomenon.…”

Section: Activation Beyond Language and Theory Of Mind Related Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pragmatic Language Processing in the Adolescent Brain

Asaridou

Demir-Lira

Uddén

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Adolescence is a developmental period in which social interactions become increasingly important. Successful social interactions rely heavily on pragmatic competence, the appropriate use of language in different social contexts, a skill that is still developing in adolescence. In the present study, we used fMRI to characterize the brain networks underlying pragmatic language processing in typically developing adolescents. We used an indirect speech paradigm whereby participants were presented with question/answer dialogues in which the meaning of the answer had to be inferred from the context, in this case the preceding question. Participants were presented with three types of answers:(1) direct replies, i.e., simple answers to open-ended questions, (2) indirect informative replies, i.e., answers in which the speaker's intention was to add more information to a yes/no question, and (3) indirect affective replies, i.e., answers in which the speaker's intention was to express polite refusals, negative opinions or to save face in response to an emotionally charged question. We found that indirect affective replies elicited the strongest response in brain areas associated with language comprehension (superior temporal gyri), theory of mind (medial prefrontal cortex, temporo-parietal junction, and precuneus), and attention/working memory (inferior frontal gyri). The increased activation to indirect affective as opposed to indirect informative and direct replies potentially reflects the high salience of opinions and perspectives of others in adolescence. Our results add to previous findings on socio-cognitive processing in adolescents and extend them to pragmatic language comprehension.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Activation Beyond Language and Theory Of Mind Related Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pragmatic Language Processing in the Adolescent Brain

Asaridou

Demir-Lira

Uddén

et al. 2019

Preprint

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“…The correlation between parents' and adolescents' anterior insula activation provides initial evidence for parental influences on ER and empathy development on a neurobiological level. A past study of adolescents found that activation of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and vmPFC was associated with empathic accuracy (Kral et al, 2017), indicating that these regions are not simply involved in feeling empathic but are needed to correctly assess another person's feelings. Yet another empathyrelated region activated by the error condition was the caudate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

TEAMwork: Testing Emotional Attunement and Mutuality During Parent-Adolescent fMRI

Kerr

Cosgrove

Ratliff

et al. 2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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The parent-child relationship and family context influence the development of emotion regulation (ER) brain circuitry and related skills in children and adolescents. Although both parents' and children's ER neurocircuitry simultaneously affect how they interact with one another, neuroimaging studies of parent-child relationships typically include only one member of the dyad in brain imaging procedures. The current study examined brain activation related to parenting and ER in parent-adolescent dyads during concurrent fMRI scanning with a novel task -the Testing Emotional Attunement and Mutuality (TEAM) task. The TEAM task includes feedback trials indicating the other dyad member made an error, resulting in a monetary loss for both participants. Results indicate that positive parenting practices as reported by the adolescent were positively correlated with parents' hemodynamic activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a region related to empathy, during these error trials. Additionally, during feedback conditions both parents and adolescents exhibited fMRI activation in ER-related regions, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior insula, fusiform gyrus, thalamus, caudate, precuneus, and superior parietal lobule. Adolescents had higher left amygdala activation than parents during the feedback condition. These findings demonstrate the utility of dyadic fMRI scanning for investigating relational processes, particularly in the parent-child relationship.

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“…Fisher's r to z conversion was then used to convert correlation coefficients to zscores (See Figure 1). Similar procedures to previous EAT studies were followed for calculating empathic accuracy ratings in order to maintain fidelity with previously reported results in other populations (Kral et al, 2017;J. Lee et al, 2011;Mackes et al, 2018;Zaki et al, 2009).…”

Section: Empathic Accuracy Behavioural Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Empathic accuracy in adolescent girls with Turner Syndrome

Klabunde¹,

Piccirilli²,

Bruno³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Objective: Girls and women with Turner Syndrome (TS) demonstrate social challenges and difficulties identifying negative emotions, specifically fear. Previous studies suggest that social deficits in TS could be associated with theory of mind (TOM) difficulties or visual-spatial processing abnormalities. To further examine the potential mechanisms underlying social deficits in TS, we administered the empathic accuracy task, a naturalistic social cognition task. Method: The performance of 14 girls with TS was compared to 12 age-matched typically developing girls (ages 12 to 17) on an empathic accuracy task and a (control) visual-motor line-tracking task. Empathic accuracy was compared across positive and negative emotionally valanced videos. Results: We found that girls with TS differ from typically developing girls on empathic accuracy ratings for negative videos; no differences were detected for the positive videos. No between group differences were found on the control line tracking task. Conclusion: Our findings expand upon the previously detected affect recognition problems in TS to also include impaired detection of negatively valanced empathic interactions. Such difficulties for girls with TS could contribute to their social deficits and anxiety. Results from this study provide important information about gene-body-brain interactions and their influence on emotion processing and empathic accuracy during adolescence.

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Neural correlates of empathic accuracy in adolescence

Cited by 34 publications

References 52 publications

Pragmatic Language Processing in the Adolescent Brain

Pragmatic Language Processing in the Adolescent Brain

TEAMwork: Testing Emotional Attunement and Mutuality During Parent-Adolescent fMRI

Empathic accuracy in adolescent girls with Turner Syndrome

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