Empathy and Mood Awareness Reflected in the Resting-State Brain Metabolic Activity in the Patients with Schizophrenia and Normal Subjects.
- Author:
Il Ho PARK
1
;
Jiwon CHUN
;
Young Chul JUNG
;
Jeong Ho SEOK
;
Hae Jeong PARK
;
Jong Doo LEE
;
Jae Jin KIM
Author Information
1. Institute of Behavioral Science in Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Gwangju, Korea. jaejkim@yonsei.ac.kr
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords:
Empathy;
Emotional awareness;
Schizophrenia;
Resting-state;
Orbitofrontal cortex;
PET
- MeSH:
Brain*;
Empathy*;
Entorhinal Cortex;
Fluorodeoxyglucose F18;
Humans;
Prefrontal Cortex;
Schizophrenia*
- From:Journal of the Korean Society of Biological Psychiatry
2007;14(2):129-141
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
OBJECTIVES: Empathy has been conceptualized as the ability of emotional resonance and perspective-taking. Emotional awareness has been proposed as the basis of empathy. In this study we examined the relationship between empathy and mood awareness and their neural correlates in resting-state activity in normal controls and patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: Empathy and mood awareness scale scores were compared between 29 patients with schizophrenia and 21 normal controls by voxel-based t-tests and voxel-based correlation analyses of resting-state 18F-FDG PET images. RESULTS: Empathy and mood labeling scale scores were significantly decreased in schizophrenic patients. Mood monitoring was positively correlated with empathy score in normal controls, but not in schizophrenic patients. In normal controls, empathy was positively correlated with resting-state activities in the intraparietal sulcus and mood monitoring was positively correlated with the temporal pole, frontopolar cortex, inferior temporal gyrus, entorhinal cortex and the subgenual prefrontal cortex resting activities. The orbitofrontal cortex resting activity was positively correlated with mood monitoring-related subgenual prefrontal cortex activity in the normal controls. Patients with schizophrenia showed decreased orbitofrontal resting activity and loss of its correlations with mood monitoring-related regional activities. CONCLUSION: This study showed that alteration in the resting-state activity in schizophrenia may reflect dysfunctional empathy and distorted characteristic of emotional awareness. However, the resting-state activity may not reflect the relationship between emotional awareness and empathy.
