Browsing by Subject "Affective empathy"

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    Cognitive and Affective Empathy as Indirect Paths Between Heterogeneous Depression Symptoms on Default Mode and Salience Network Connectivity in Adolescents
    (Springer, 2023) Winters, Drew E.; Pruitt, Patrick J.; Gambin, Malgorzata; Fukui, Sadaaki; Cyders, Melissa A.; Pierce, Barbara J.; Lay, Kathy; Damoiseaux, Jessica S.; School of Social Work
    Depression amongst adolescents is a prevalent disorder consisting of heterogeneous emotional and functional symptoms-often involving impairments in social domains such as empathy. Cognitive and affective components of empathy as well as their associated neural networks (default mode network for cognitive empathy and salience network for affective empathy) are affected by depression. Depression commonly onsets during adolescence, a critical period for brain development underlying empathy. However, the available research in this area conceptualizes depression as a homogenous construct, and thereby miss to represent the full spectrum of symptoms. The present study aims to extend previous literature by testing whether cognitive and affective empathy indirectly account for associations between brain network connectivity and heterogeneous depression symptoms in adolescents. Heterogeneous functional and emotional symptoms of depression were measured using the child depression inventory. Our results indicate that cognitive empathy mediates the association between default mode network functional connectivity and emotional symptoms of depression. More specifically, that adolescents with a stronger positive association between the default mode network and cognitive empathy show lower emotional depression symptoms. This finding highlights the importance of cognitive empathy in the relationship between brain function and depression symptoms, which may be an important consideration for existing models of depression in adolescents.
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    Empathy and Its Relationship With Social Functioning in Individuals at Ultra-High Risk for Psychosis
    (Frontiers Media, 2021-11-11) Kuis, Daan Jan; van de Giessen, Tara; de Jong, Steven; Sportel, Bouwina Esther; Boonstra, Nynke; van Donkersgoed, Rozanne; Lysaker, Paul H.; Hasson-Ohayon, Ilanit; Pijnenborg, Gerdina Hendrika Maria; Psychiatry, School of Medicine
    Introduction: Social functioning is often impaired in the ultra-high-risk (UHR) phase of psychosis. There is some evidence that empathy is also impaired in this phase and that these impairments may underlie difficulties in social functioning. The main aim of this study was to investigate whether cognitive and affective empathy are lower in people in the UHR phase of psychosis in comparison to healthy controls, and whether possible impairments have the same magnitude as in people with schizophrenia. A second aim was to examine whether there is a relationship between empathy and social functioning in individuals in the UHR phase. Method: Forty-three individuals at UHR for psychosis, 92 people with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder, and 49 persons without a psychiatric disorder completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE), and Faux Pas as instruments to measure empathy. The Time Use survey was used to measure social functioning. MAN(C)OVA was used to analyse differences between groups on empathy and social functioning, and correlations were calculated between empathy measures and social functioning for each group. Results: The UHR group presented significantly lower levels of self-reported cognitive empathy than the healthy controls, but not compared to patients with SSD, while performance-based cognitive empathy was unimpaired in the UHR group. On the affective measures, we found that people with UHR and patients with SSD had significantly higher levels of self-reported distress in interpersonal settings compared to healthy controls. In the UHR group, perspective-taking was negatively associated with time spent on structured social activities. In the SSD group, we found that structured social activities were positively associated with perspective-taking and negatively associated with personal distress in interactions with others. Lastly, in people without mental illness, social activities were positively associated with performance-based perspective-taking. Conclusion: Impairments in subjective cognitive empathy appear to be present in the UHR phase, suggesting that difficulties in interpreting the thoughts and feelings of others precede the onset of psychotic disorders. This can inform future interventions in the UHR phase.
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    Network Functional Connectivity Underlying Dissociable Cognitive and Affective Components of Empathy in Adolescence
    (Elsevier, 2021) Winters, Drew E.; Pruitt, Patrick J.; Fukui, Sadaaki; Cyders, Melissa A.; Pierce, Barbara J.; Lay, Kathy; Damoiseaux, Jessica S.
    Empathy, the capacity to understand and share others' emotions, can occur through cognitive and affective components. These components are different conceptually, behaviorally, and in the brain. Neuroimaging task-based research in adolescents and adults document that cognitive empathy associates with the default mode and frontoparietal networks, whereas regions of the salience network underlie affective empathy. However, cognitive empathy is slower to mature than affective empathy and the extant literature reveals considerable developmental differences between adolescent and adult brains within and between these three networks. We extend previous work by examining empathy's association with functional connectivity within and between these networks in adolescents. Participants (n = 84, aged 13-17; 46.4% female) underwent resting state fMRI and completed self-report measures (Interpersonal Reactivity Index) for empathy as part of a larger Nathan-Kline Institute study. Regression analyses revealed adolescents reporting higher cognitive empathy had higher within DMN connectivity. Post hoc analysis revealed cognitive empathy's association within DMN connectivity is independent of affective empathy or empathy in general; and this association is driven by positive pairwise connections between the bilateral angular gyri and medial prefrontal cortex. These results suggest introspective cognitive processes related to the DMN are specifically important for cognitive empathy in adolescence.