Journal
SCHIZOPHRENIA BULLETIN
Volume 39, Issue 3, Pages 617-628Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbs042
Keywords
social cognition; empathic accuracy; emotional expressivity; schizophrenia; functional imaging
Categories
Funding
- Desert Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center
- UCLA Brain Mapping Center
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research
- Brain Mapping Medical Research Organization
- Brain Mapping Support Foundation
- Pierson-Lovelace Foundation
- Ahmanson Foundation
- William M. and Linda R. Dietel Philanthropic Fund at the Northern Piedmont Community Foundation
- Tamkin Foundation
- Jennifer Jones-Simon
- Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation
- Robson Family
- Northstar Fund
- [MH043292]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Introduction: Empathic deficits in schizophrenia may lead to social dysfunction, but previous studies of schizophrenia have not modeled empathy through paradigms that (1) present participants with naturalistic social stimuli and (2) link brain activity to accuracy about inferring other's emotional states. This study addressed this gap by investigating the neural correlates of empathic accuracy (EA) in schizophrenia. Methods: Fifteen schizophrenia patients and 15 controls were scanned while continuously rating the affective state of another person shown in a series of videos (ie, targets). These ratings were compared with targets' own self-rated affect, and EA was defined as the correlation between participants' ratings and targets' self-ratings. Targets' self-reported emotional expressivity also was measured. We searched for brain regions whose activity tracked parametrically with (1) perceivers' EA and (2) targets' expressivity. Results: Patients showed reduced EA compared with controls. The left precuneus, left middle frontal gyms, and bilateral thalamus were significantly more correlated with EA in controls compared with patients. High expressivity in targets was associated with better EA in controls but not in patients. High expressivity was associated with increased brain activity in a large set of regions in controls (eg, fusiform gyrus, medial prefrontal cortex) but not in patients. Discussion: These results use a naturalistic performance measure to confirm that schizophrenic patients demonstrate impaired ability to understand others' internal states. They provide novel evidence about a potential mechanism for this impairment: schizophrenic patients failed to capitalize on targets' emotional expressivity and also demonstrate reduced neural sensitivity to targets' affective cues.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available