Empathy Processing Research Articles

Tramadol Effects on Brain Activity During Cognitive and Emotional Empathy for Pain: A Randomized Controlled Study

Pain is perceived not only by personal experience but also vicariously. Pain empathy is the ability to share and understand other’s intentions and emotions in their painful conditions, which can be divided into cognitive and emotional empathy. It remains unclear how centrally acting analgesics would modulate brain activity related to pain empathy and which component of pain empathy would be altered by analgesics. In this study, we examined the effects of the analgesic tramadol on the brain activity for pain empathy in healthy adults. We used 2 tasks to assess brain activity for pain empathy. In experiment 1, we used a well-established picture-based pain empathy task involving passive observation of other’s pain. In experiment 2, we developed a novel pain empathy task to assess brain activity during cognitive and emotional empathy for pain separately in a single task. We conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled within-subject crossover study with functional magnetic resonance imaging for 33 participants in experiment 1 and 31 participants in experiment 2, respectively. In experiment 1, we found that tramadol decreased activation in the supramarginal gyrus during observation of other's pain compared with placebo. Supramarginal gyrus activation correlated negatively with the thermal pain threshold. In experiment 2, we found that tramadol decreased activation in angular gyrus in cognitive empathy for pain compared with placebo but did not change brain activity in emotional empathy for pain. PerspectiveCentrally acting analgesics such as tramadol may have not only analgesic effects on self-experienced pain but also on the complex neural processing of pain empathy.

Empathy-related abnormalities among women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder: clinical and functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Empathy refers to the cognitive and emotional reactions of an individual to the experiences of another. Women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) report severe social difficulties during the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle. This clinical and functional magnetic resonance imaging study aimed to explore affective and cognitive empathy in women with PMDD, during the highly symptomatic luteal phase. Overall, 32 women with PMDD and 20 healthy controls participated in the study. The neuroimaging data were collected using a highly empathy-engaging movie. First, we characterised the synchrony of neural responses within PMDD and healthy groups, using the inter-individual correlation approach. Next, using network cohesion analysis, we compared connectivity within and between brain networks associated with affective and cognitive empathy between groups, and assessed the association of these network patterns with empathic measures. A consistent, although complex, picture of empathy abnormalities was found. Patients with PMDD showed decreased neural synchrony in parietal and frontal key nodes of cognitive empathy processing (theory-of-mind network), but higher neural synchrony in the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the salience network, implicated in affective empathy. Positive correlations between cognitive perspective-taking scores and neural synchrony were found within the theory-of-mind network. Interestingly, during highly emotional moments, the PMDD group showed increased functional connectivity within this network. Similar to major depression, individuals with PMDD show enhanced affective empathy and reduced cognitive empathy. These findings echo clinical observations reported when women with PMDD have a dysregulated emotional response to negative stimuli.

Can people empathize with offenders and victims during violent scenes? Behavioral and brain correlates of affective and cognitive empathy considering victim vs. offender perspective using the Bochumer affective and cognitive empathy task (BACET).

Empathy is defined as the capacity to resonate with others' emotions and can be subdivided into affective and cognitive components. Few studies have focused on the role of perspective-taking within this ability. Utilizing the novel Bochumer Affective and Cognitive Empathy Task (BACET), the present study aims to determine the characteristics of specific empathy components, as well as the impact of offender vs. victim perspective-taking. A total of 21 male participants (mean age = 30.6) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while watching 60 videos showing two protagonists in neutral (n = 30) or violent interactions (n = 30) thereby adopting the perspective of the (later) offender or victim. Our data show that videos showing emotional (violent) content, compared to those with neutral content, were rated more emotionally negative and induced higher affective empathic involvement, particularly when adopting the victim's perspective compared to the offender's point of view. The correct assignment of people's appropriate emotion (cognitive empathy) was found to be more accurate and faster in the emotional condition relative to the neutral one. However, no significant differences in cognitive empathy performance were observed when comparing victim vs offender conditions. On a neural level, affective empathy processing, during emotional compared to neutral videos, was related to brain areas generally involved in social information processing, particularly in occipital, parietal, insular, and frontal regions. Cognitive aspects of empathy, relative to factual reasoning questions, were located in inferior occipital areas, fusiform gyrus, temporal pole, and frontal cortex. Neural differences were found depending on the perspective, i.e., empathizing with the victim, compared to the offender, during affective empathy activated parts of the right temporal lobe, whereas empathy towards the role of the offender revealed stronger activation in the right lingual gyrus. During cognitive empathy, empathy toward the victim, relative to the offender, enhanced activity of the right supramarginal and left precentral gyri. The opposite contrast did not show any significant differences. We conclude that the BACET can be a useful tool for further studying behavioral and neurobiological underpinnings of affective and cognitive empathy, especially in forensic populations since response patterns point to a significant impact of the observer's perspective.

Relationship between individual differences in pain empathy and task- and resting-state EEG

Pain empathy is a complex form of psychological inference that enables us to understand how others feel in the context of pain. Since pain empathy may be grounded in our own pain experiences, it exhibits huge inter-individual variability. However, the neural mechanisms behind the individual differences in pain empathy and its association with pain perception are still poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to characterize brain mechanisms associated with individual differences in pain empathy in adult participants (n = 24). The 32-channel electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded at rest and during a pain empathy task, and participants viewed static visual stimuli of the limbs submitted to painful and nonpainful stimulation to solicit empathy. The pain sensitivity of each participant was measured using a series of direct current stimulations. In our results, the N2 of Fz and the LPP of P3 and P4 were affected by painful pictures. We found that both delta and alpha bands in the frontal and parietal cortex were involved in the regulation of pain empathy. For the delta band, a close relationship was found between average power, either in the resting or task state, and individual differences in pain empathy. It suggested that the spectral power in Fz's delta band may reflect subjective pain empathy across individuals. For the alpha band, the functional connectivity between Fz and P3 under painful picture stimulation was correlated to individuals' pain sensitivity. It indicated that the alpha band may reflect individual differences in pain sensitivity and be involved in pain empathy processing. Our results suggested the distinct role of the delta and alpha bands of EEG signals in pain empathy processing and may deepen our understanding of the neural mechanisms underpinning pain empathy.

Empathy for pain in individuals influenced by moral identity: Evidence from an ERP study

Both morality and empathy are crucial in the construction of human society. The influence of morality on empathy also deserves researchers’ attention. This study used event-related potential techniques to control the degree of moral identity of participants through writing tasks and deeply explored the psychological processes and neural mechanisms of moral identity affecting pain empathy. Behavioral results for picture type showed that the response time to the pain pictures was longer than the nonpain pictures, the accuracy of pain pictures was lower than that of nonpain pictures and ratings of pain pictures were rated higher than non-pain picture. Behavioral results for moral identity showed that there were no significant differences in response time, accuracy, and rating. The interaction between picture type and moral identity was not significant. The ERP results showed that people with high moral identity had higher levels of empathy than those with low moral identity, and pain pictures induced smaller N2 amplitudes and larger Late Positive Component (LPC) amplitudes than nonpain pictures. For people with low moral identity, the pain picture amplitudes were not significantly different from the N2 and LPC amplitudes induced by the nonpain pictures. These results suggest that moral identity affects and moderates the early processing of emotional empathy in the N2 representation and the late processing of cognitive empathy in the LPC representation. Individuals with high moral identity are more likely to induce early automated processing of pain to others when stimulated by pain pictures, automatically sharing the negative emotions of others, which is manifested as having more emotional empathy. Individuals with high moral identity exhibit a more refined analytical evaluation of pain pictures and a conscious, top-down control of processing when stimulated by pain pictures, which is manifested as having more cognitive empathy. Whether in the emotional empathy stage or in the cognitive empathy stage, moral identity has an important impact on pain empathy, and higher moral identity is the premise of empathy for the pain of others.

Empathy and Cognitive Processing as Factors Determining the Consequences of Secondary Exposure to Trauma Among Roman Catholic Clergymen

By helping individuals after traumatic experiences, the helper is also exposed to the consequences of trauma. The aim of this study was to determine the predictors of consequences of secondary exposure to trauma among clergymen and therapists (N = 140) helping victims of trauma in Poland. Symptoms of secondary traumatic stress (STS) were identified in 22.9% of the clergymen and 8.6% of therapists, and secondary posttraumatic growth (SPTG) in 61.4% of the clergymen and 42.9% of therapists. STS and SPTG predictors were identified based on regression models. In the case of clergymen, regret is a determinant of STS, and positive cognitive restructuring of SPTG. Research findings highlight the need to increase awareness of exposure to secondary trauma among the clergy, and for them to acquire greater skills for coping with stress.

Natural human postural oscillations enhance the empathic response to a facial pain expression in a virtual character

Virtual reality platforms producing interactive and highly realistic characters are being used more and more as a research tool in social and affective neuroscience to better capture both the dynamics of emotion communication and the unintentional and automatic nature of emotional processes. While idle motion (i.e., non-communicative movements) is commonly used to create behavioural realism, its use to enhance the perception of emotion expressed by a virtual character is critically lacking. This study examined the influence of naturalistic (i.e., based on human motion capture) idle motion on two aspects (the perception of other’s pain and affective reaction) of an empathic response towards pain expressed by a virtual character. In two experiments, 32 and 34 healthy young adults were presented video clips of a virtual character displaying a facial expression of pain while its body was either static (still condition) or animated with natural postural oscillations (idle condition). The participants in Experiment 1 rated the facial pain expression of the virtual human as more intense, and those in Experiment 2 reported being more touched by its pain expression in the idle condition compared to the still condition, indicating a greater empathic response towards the virtual human’s pain in the presence of natural postural oscillations. These findings are discussed in relation to the models of empathy and biological motion processing. Future investigations will help determine to what extent such naturalistic idle motion could be a key ingredient in enhancing the anthropomorphism of a virtual human and making its emotion appear more genuine.

Empathy-based tolerance towards poor norm violators in third-party punishment.

Third-party punishment (TPP) plays an important role in fairness norm enforcement. This study investigated how the economic status of proposers could modulate third parties' behavioural and neural responses to unfairness. Participants played a TPP game as third parties deciding whether to punish proposers after observing the offers from proposers while behavioural and electroencephalogram (EEG) data were recorded. The proposers were of either high economic status or low economic status, and the recipients were middle class. The behavioural results indicated that participants reported decreased punishment for poor-proposed unfair offers compared to rich-proposed unfair offers, and this effect was stronger for highly unfair offers. Neurally, greater P200, a component involved in empathy processing, was observed in response to highly unfair offers (i.e. 90:10 and 80:20) proposed by the poor, suggesting that when the targets of severe punishments were poor proposers, participants showed greater empathy for poor norm violators in highly unfair trials. Taken together, these findings help to elucidate that the third-parties tend to tolerate the norm-violating behaviours conducted by the poor and provided further neuroscience evidence for the influence of economic status of proposers on TPP.

Probing the role of the right inferior frontal gyrus during Pain-Related empathy processing: Evidence from fMRI and TMS.

Recent studies have suggested that the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) may be involved in pain‐related empathy. To verify the role of the rIFG, we performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to replicate previous research and further designed a noninvasive repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) experiment to probe the causal role of the rIFG in pain‐related empathy processing. We assigned 74 volunteers (37 females) to three groups. Group 1 (n = 26) performed a task in which participants were required to perceive pain in others (task of pain: TP) and we used fMRI to observe the activity of the rIFG during pain‐related empathy processing. Then, we applied online rTMS to the rIFG and the vertex site (as reference site) to observe the performance of Group 2 (n = 24; performing TP) and Group 3 (n = 24; performing a control task of identifying body parts; task of body: TB). fMRI experiment demonstrated stronger activation in the rIFG than in the vertex during the perception of pain in others (p < .0001, Bonferroni‐corrected). rTMS experiment indicated that when the rIFG was temporarily disrupted, participants perceived pain in others significantly more slowly (p < .0001, Bonferroni‐corrected) than when the vertex was disrupted. Our results provide evidence that the rIFG is involved in pain‐related empathy processing, which yields insights into how the brain perceives pain in others.

The Mediating Role of Cognitive Trauma Processing in the Relationship Between Empathy and Secondary Traumatic Stress Symptoms Among Female Professionals Working With Victims of Violence.

One of the negative consequences of indirect trauma exposure is secondary traumatic stress (STS). Professionals helping victims of violence may be at the risk of STS symptoms development. Both empathy and cognitive processing of trauma seem to be important in this process. The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between empathy, cognitive processing of trauma and symptoms of STS in women working with people who have experienced violence trauma. The mediation role of cognitive coping strategies in the relationship between empathy and STS was also checked. A total of 154 female professionals representing three groups (therapists, social workers, and probation officers) were included in the study. The age of the respondents ranged from 26 to 67 years (M = 43.98, SD = 10.83). Three standard measurement tools were included in the study: the modified PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), the Empathic Sensitivity Scale, and the Cognitive Processing of Trauma Scale. Correlational analysis indicated STS to have positive associations (Pearson's correlation coefficients) with all three aspects of empathy, and three of the five cognitive coping strategies (denial, regret, downward comparison). Mediation analysis performed by the bootstrapping method found strategies of regret and downward comparison to act as mediators in the relationship between STS and empathic concern. The same results were obtained for perspective taking. In addition, the regret and denial strategies mediated the relationship between personal distress and STS. Empathy and cognitive trauma processing may play an important role in STS symptoms development. Preventive programs for professionals helping trauma victims should focus on cognitive processing of trauma and empathy.

Association Between Trait Empathy and Resting Brain Activity in Women With Primary Dysmenorrhea During the Pain and Pain-Free Phases.

Empathy refers to the ability to understand someone else's emotions and fluctuates with the current state in healthy individuals. However, little is known about the neural network of empathy in clinical populations at different pain states. The current study aimed to examine the effects of long-term pain on empathy-related networks and whether empathy varied at different pain states by studying primary dysmenorrhea (PDM) patients. Multivariate partial least squares was employed in 46 PDM women and 46 healthy controls (HC) during periovulatory, luteal, and menstruation phases. We identified neural networks associated with different aspects of empathy in both groups. Part of the obtained empathy-related network in PDM exhibited a similar activity compared with HC, including the right anterior insula and other regions, whereas others have an opposite activity in PDM, including the inferior frontal gyrus and right inferior parietal lobule. These results indicated an abnormal regulation to empathy in PDM. Furthermore, there was no difference in empathy association patterns in PDM between the pain and pain-free states. This study suggested that long-term pain experience may lead to an abnormal function of the brain network for empathy processing that did not vary with the pain or pain-free state across the menstrual cycle.

Empathy and theory of mind in multiple sclerosis: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background:Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an immune-mediated demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS). Recently, numerous studies have shown that MS disrupts a number of social cognitive abilities, including empathy, theory of mind (ToM), and facial emotion recognition. In contrast to well-documented deficits in the core social cognitive domains of ToM and facial emotion recognition, it is not clear the broad and specific subcomponents of empathy processing affected. In addition, the specific subcomponents of ToM affected in MS are also unclear. The aim of this study is to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to characterize the performance of empathy and ToM in MS.Methods:A systematic literature search will be performed for eligible studies published up to July 1st, 2020 in 3 international databases (PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase). The work such as article retrieval, screen, quality evaluation, data collection will be conducted by 2 independent researchers. Meta-analysis will be performed using Stata 15.0 software.Results:The results of this study will be published in a peer-reviewed journal.Conclusions:This meta-analysis will provide a high-quality synthesis from existing evidence for the performance of empathy and ToM in MS.PROSPERO registration number:INPLASY202070029.

Impaired empathy in patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy: An event-related potentials study

PurposeEpilepsy is a common neurological disorder that may be complicated by neurobehavioral comorbidities. In a previous study, we identified impairment of empathy in patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE). However, the temporal processing of empathy in patients with IGE is not well understood. MethodsWe investigated empathy for pain and self-reported empathy in 21 patients with IGE and 22 healthy control subjects. All study participants were required to complete a pain empathy task involving images of individuals in pain and neutral conditions during recording of event-related potentials. ResultsCompared with the controls, the patients with IGE showed impaired cognitive empathy but intact emotional empathy on the Chinese version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index; they also had normal N1, N2, and late positive potential (LPP) but lower P3 amplitudes evoked by depictions of pain in others when compared with neutral images during the pain judgment task; the difference in the effects of pain empathy on the pain task between the IGE group and the control group was statistically significant. ConclusionThese results indicate that later processing of pain empathy is impaired but early processing is intact in patients with IGE. The present study extends the findings of our previous behavioral study by providing solid evidence of impaired empathy in patients with IGE at the neural processing level.

Shared and distinct functional networks for empathy and pain processing: a systematic review and meta-analysis of fMRI studies.

BackgroundEmpathy for pain is a complex phenomenon incorporating sensory, cognitive and affective processes. Functional neuroimaging studies indicate a rich network of brain activations for empathic processing. However, previous research focused on core activations in bilateral anterior insula (AI) and anterior cingulate/anterior midcingulate cortex (ACC/aMCC) which are also typically present during nociceptive (pain) processing. Theoretical understanding of empathy would benefit from empirical investigation of shared and contrasting brain activations for empathic and nociceptive processing.MethodThirty-nine empathy for observed pain studies (1112 participants; 527 foci) were selected by systematic review. Coordinate based meta-analysis (activation likelihood estimation) was performed and novel contrast analyses compared neurobiological processing of empathy with a comprehensive meta-analysis of 180 studies of nociceptive processing (Tanasescu et al., 2016).ResultsConjunction analysis indicated overlapping activations for empathy and nociception in AI, aMCC, somatosensory and inferior frontal regions. Contrast analysis revealed increased likelihood of activation for empathy, relative to nociception, in bilateral supramarginal, inferior frontal and occipitotemporal regions. Nociception preferentially activated bilateral posterior insula, somatosensory cortex and aMCC.ConclusionOur findings support the likelihood of shared and distinct neural networks for empathic, relative to nociceptive, processing. This offers succinct empirical support for recent tiered or modular theoretical accounts of empathy.

Do I feel or do I know? Neuroimaging meta-analyses on the multiple facets of empathy

Empathy is a multidimensional construct including affective and cognitive components while maintaining the distinction between one-self and others. Our meta-analyses focused on shared and distinct networks underlying cognitive (taking somebody else's perspective in emotional/painful situations) and affective (self-referentially feeling somebody else's emotions/pain) empathy for various states including painful and emotional situations. Furthermore, a comparison with direct pain experience was carried out.For cognitive empathy, consistent activation in the anterior dorsal medial frontal gyrus (dmPFG) and the supramarginal gyrus (SMG) occurred. For affective empathy, convergent activation of the posterior dmPFG and the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was found. Consistent activation of the anterior insula (AI), the anterior dmPFG and the SMG was observed for empathy for pain, while convergent recruitment of the temporo-parietal junction, precuneus, posterior dmPFG, and the IFG was revealed in the meta-analysis across empathy for emotion experiments. The AI and the dmPFG/mid-cingulate cortex (MCC) showed overlapping as well as distinct neural activation for pain processing and empathy for pain.Taken together, we were able to show difference in the meta-analytic networks across cognitive and affective empathy as well as for pain and empathy processing. Based on the current results, distinct functions along the midline structures of the brain during empathy processing are apparent. Our data are lending further support for a multidimensional concept of empathy.

Paracetamol alters empathy scores in healthy and headache subjects: Functional MRI correlates

IntroductionAlthough previous evidence suggest that paracetamol decreases psychological reactivity in healthy subjects, there is still no confirmed correlation between the empathy scores and brain activity in healthy and headache patients after paracetamol treatment. Material and methodsThe study group included 16 patients with tension-type headache, and 12 healthy age-and sex-matched controls. After a detailed neurological examination Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and Empathy for Pain Scale (EPS) were applied to all subjects. Next, 1000 mg paracetamol tablet was administered orally, after administration of paracetamol, EPS were repeated, and fMRI was performed to all subjects. ResultsWe have revealed increased empathy scores in the headache group after the paracetamol treatment which were associated with significant alterations in brain regions which play a critical role in the processing of empathy. DiscussionThe observed neuroimaging and clinical difference between healthy and headache subjects could be related to the fact that pain perception in healthy subjects might differ in some aspects from the mechanisms of empathy in headache-experienced patients. ConclusionTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that evaluated the paracetamol treatment and neural networks' correlation with pain empathy in healthy and headache individuals.

The similar past pain experience evokes both observational contagious pain and consolation in stranger rat observers

Laboratory rodents have been shown to have an ability to recognize the injury site and negative emotional state of their conspecifics in pain, resulting in empathic consoling behaviors and observational contagious pain (OCP). However, these empathic responses have been shown to be familiarity-dependent. In this report, we further explored whether the past pain experience could evoke empathic response in stranger observers. In our rodent model, two types of empathic response have been identified from naive cagemate observer (COnaive) during and after a priming dyadic social interaction (PDSI) with a cagemate demonstrator in pain (CDpain): the consolation and OCP. Consolation is represented by allolicking and allogrooming behaviors toward the CDpain, while the OCP is represented by a long-term mechanical pain hypersensitivity. The current results showed that: (1) neither the consolation nor OCP could be identified in the naive noncagemate observer (NCOnaive) during and after a PDSI with a noncagemate demonstrator in pain (NCDpain); (2) nor were the two types of empathic response seen in the NCO, who had just experienced acute pain (NCOpainexp), during and after a PDSI with a naive unfamiliar conspecific (NCDnaive). However, both the consolation and OCP were dramatically identified in the NCOpainexp during and after a PDSI with a NCD in pain (NCDpain). The current results demonstrated that the past pain experience can evoke both consolation and OCP in stranger rat observers when witnessing a conspecific in pain, implicating that the processing of empathy for pain can be modulated by past negative mood experience.

Domain-general and domain-preferential neural correlates underlying empathy towards physical pain, emotional situation and emotional faces: An ALE meta-analysis

Empathy is essential for social interactions and individual development. Through the empathy field, the domain could be divided into three subgroups according to the stimulus materials adopted in tasks: empathy towards physical pain (PhyE), empathy towards emotional situations (ESuE) and towards emotional faces (ExpE). By far, no empirical studies directly compared the neural correlates underlying three sub-domains. The current study, therefore, utilized ALE meta-analysis to identify the general and distinct neural correlates underlying three sub-domains of empathy. The results revealed the conjunction in bilateral supplementary motor areas which were generally activated across three sub-domains. Preferential correlates for PhyE were found in bilateral IPL, left middle cingulate cortex and left anterior insula, which were associated with pain, action and somatosensory functions. Left middle temporal gyrus was found to be preferentially engaged for ESuE. And the preferential activations for ExpE were identified in right amygdala and right dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex, the regions of which were statistically associated with functional Neurosynth terms “facial expression”, “face”, “emotion” and “social”. Through the current meta-analyses, we firstly indicated that the domain-general and domain-preferential neural correlates potentially exist to underlie the processing of empathy evoked by different types of stimuli.

Differential brain mechanisms during reading human vs. machine translated fiction and news texts

Few neuroimaigng studies on reading comprehension have been conducted under natural reading settings. In this study, we showed texts presented in a natural way during functional MRI (fMRI) measurements to reveal brain areas sensitive to reading comprehension. Specifically, this paradigm independently manipulated two holistic features of article style: text genre and translation style, a qualitative index of how typical word choices and arrangements are made in daily use of the language. Specifically, articles from The New York Times (news) and Reader’s Digest (fiction) translated from English to Mandarin Chinese either by human experts or machine (Google Translate) were used to investigate the correlation of brain activity across participants during article reading. We found that bi-hemispheric visual cortex, precuneus, and occipito-parietal junction show significantly correlated hemodynamics across participants regardless of translation style and article genre. Compared to machine translation, reading human expert translation elicited more reliable fMRI signals across participants at precuneus, potentially because narrative representations and contents can be coherently presented over tens of seconds. We also found significantly stronger inter-subject correlated fMRI signals at temporal poles and fusiform gyri in fiction reading than in news reading. This may be attributed to more stable empathy processing across participants in fiction reading. The degree of stability of brain responses across subjects at extra-linguistic areas was found correlated with subjective rating on the text fluency. The functional connectivity between these areas was modulated by text genre and translation style. Taken together, our imaging results suggested stable and selective neural substrates associated with comprehending holistic features of written narratives.

Classification of social anhedonia using temporal and spatial network features from a social cognition fMRI task.

Previous studies have suggested that the degree of social anhedonia reflects the vulnerability for developing schizophrenia. However, only few studies have investigated how functional network changes are related to social anhedonia. The aim of this fMRI study was to classify subjects according to their degree of social anhedonia using supervised machine learning. More specifically, we extracted both spatial and temporal network features during a social cognition task from 70 subjects, and used support vector machines for classification. Since impairment in social cognition is well established in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, the subjects performed a comic strip task designed to specifically probe theory of mind (ToM) and empathy processing. Features representing both temporal (time series) and network dynamics were extracted using task activation maps, seed region analysis, independent component analysis (ICA), and a newly developed multi-subject archetypal analysis (MSAA), which here aimed to further bridge aspects of both seed region analysis and decomposition by incorporating a spotlight approach.We found significant classification of subjects with elevated levels of social anhedonia when using the times series extracted using MSAA, indicating that temporal dynamics carry important information for classification of social anhedonia. Interestingly, we found that the same time series yielded the highest classification performance in a task classification of the ToM condition. Finally, the spatial network corresponding to that time series included both prefrontal and temporal-parietal regions as well as insula activity, which previously have been related schizotypy and the development of schizophrenia.