Trait Emotional Empathy and Resting State Functional Connectivity in Default Mode, Salience, and Central Executive Networks.

Stephen Smith,Elena Bilevicius,Tiffany Kolesar,Jennifer Kornelsen,Paul Trapnell

doi:10.3390/brainsci8070128

Stephen Smith, Elena Bilevicius + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci8070128

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Abstract

Emotional empathy is the ability to experience and/or share another person’s emotional states and responses. Although some research has examined the neural correlates of emotional empathy, there has been little research investigating whether this component of empathy is related to the functional connectivity of resting state networks in the brain. In the current study, 32 participants answered a trait emotional empathy questionnaire in a session previous to their functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Results indicate that emotional empathy scores were correlated with different patterns of functional connectivity in the default mode network (DMN), salience network (SN), and left and right central executive networks. For example, within the DMN, emotional empathy scores positively correlated with connectivity in the premotor cortex. Within the SN, empathy scores were positively correlated with the fusiform gyrus and cuneus. These findings demonstrate that emotional empathy is associated with unique patterns of functional connectivity in four of the brain’s resting state networks.

Highlights

Functional connectivity within the default mode network (DMN), salience network (SN), left central executive networks (CEN), and right CEN independent components (ICs) was correlated with trait emotional empathy scores
Clusters that have a positive r-value indicate that IPIP scores were positively correlated with the functional connectivity in that cluster, whereas clusters with a negative r-value indicate that IPIP scores are negatively correlated with the functional connectivity in that cluster
The brain areas discussed below are regions whose functional connectivity differed as a function of emotional empathy scores within each of the four components, and because no mask or template was applied in this whole-brain analysis, individual nodes of these networks—and sometimes brain areas outside of the typical networks—may show emotional empathy-dependent variability in functional connectivity

Summary

Introduction

Within the SN, empathy scores were positively correlated with the fusiform gyrus and cuneus These findings demonstrate that emotional empathy is associated with unique patterns of functional connectivity in four of the brain’s resting state networks. 1. Trait Emotional Empathy and Resting State Functional Connectivity in Default Mode, Salience, and Central Executive Networks. Empathy is a multifaceted construct consisting of the ability to identify and understand another person’s perspective [1] This ability involves two distinct facets: a cognitive component, which conceptualizes empathy as a cognitive process whereby an individual imagines a situation from another perspective, and an emotional component, thought of as the shared emotional experience with the observed other [2].

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