Abstract
In contrast to conventional functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis across participants, item analysis allows generalizing the observed neural response patterns from a specific stimulus set to the entire population of stimuli. In the present study, we perform an item analysis on an fMRI paradigm (EmpaToM) that measures the neural correlates of empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM). The task includes a large stimulus set (240 emotional vs. neutral videos to probe empathic responding and 240 ToM or factual reasoning questions to probe ToM), which we tested in two large participant samples (N = 178, N = 130). Both, the empathy‐related network comprising anterior insula, anterior cingulate/dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, and dorsal temporoparietal junction/supramarginal gyrus (TPJ) and the ToM related network including ventral TPJ, superior temporal gyrus, temporal poles, and anterior and posterior midline regions, were observed across participants and items. Regression analyses confirmed that these activations are predicted by the empathy or ToM condition of the stimuli, but not by low‐level features such as video length, number of words, syllables or syntactic complexity. The item analysis also allowed for the selection of the most effective items to create optimized stimulus sets that provide the most stable and reproducible results. Finally, reproducibility was shown in the replication of all analyses in the second participant sample. The data demonstrate (a) the generalizability of empathy and ToM related neural activity and (b) the reproducibility of the EmpaToM task and its applicability in intervention and clinical imaging studies.
Highlights
Aiming at elucidating the mechanisms underlying social understanding, human neuroscience research has extensively investigated the brainTania Singer and Philipp Kanske share senior authorship.correlates of how we feel with and know about others
Core regions of the empathy related network are found in the anterior insula (AI), anterior cingulate/dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (ACC/DMPFC), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and dorsal portions of the temporoparietal junction/supramarginal gyrus (TPJ/SMG) (Bzdok et al, 2012; Lamm, Decety, & Singer, 2011)
We aimed to investigate whether itemanalyses of empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM) replicate the neural networks observed with subject-wise analyses
Summary
Aiming at elucidating the mechanisms underlying social understanding, human neuroscience research has extensively investigated the brainTania Singer and Philipp Kanske share senior authorship.correlates of how we feel with (affective route) and know about others (cognitive route). The ToM related network includes the ventral TPJ, anterior and posterior medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), superior temporal gyrus/sulcus (STG/STS), and temporal poles (Bzdok et al, 2012; Schurz, Radua, Aichhorn, Richlan, & Perner, 2014) Direct contrasts of both functions confirmed these networks with functional (Kanske, Böckler, Trautwein, & Singer, 2015) and structural neuroimaging (Eres, Decety, Louis, & Molenberghs, 2015; Valk et al, 2017; Valk, Bernhardt, Bockler, Kanske, & Singer, 2016). Brain regions differ in cortical thickness according to the subjects' capacity to share emotions or to reason about mental states Even though both functions are essential elements of higher-level social processing, they are not directly related. The independence of empathy and ToM processing was demonstrated on the behavioral and the neural level (Kanske, Böckler, Trautwein, Parianen Lesemann, & Singer, 2016)
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