Empathy and Mood Awareness Reflected in the Resting-State Brain Metabolic Activity in the Patients with Schizophrenia and Normal Subjects

OBJECTIVES: Empathy has been conceptualized as the ability of emotional resonance and perspective-taking. Emotional awareness has been proposed as the basis of empathy. In this study we examined the relationship between empathy and mood awareness and their neural correlates in resting-state activity in normal controls and patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: Empathy and mood awareness scale scores were compared between 29 patients with schizophrenia and 21 normal controls by voxel-based t-tests and voxel-based correlation analyses of resting-state 18F-FDG PET images. RESULTS: Empathy and mood labeling scale scores were significantly decreased in schizophrenic patients. Mood monitoring was positively correlated with empathy score in normal controls, but not in schizophrenic patients. In normal controls, empathy was positively correlated with resting-state activities in the intraparietal sulcus and mood monitoring was positively correlated with the temporal pole, frontopolar cortex, inferior temporal gyrus, entorhinal cortex and the subgenual prefrontal cortex resting activities. The orbitofrontal cortex resting activity was positively correlated with mood monitoring-related subgenual prefrontal cortex activity in the normal controls. Patients with schizophrenia showed decreased orbitofrontal resting activity and loss of its correlations with mood monitoring-related regional activities. CONCLUSION: This study showed that alteration in the resting-state activity in schizophrenia may reflect dysfunctional empathy and distorted characteristic of emotional awareness. However, the resting-state activity may not reflect the relationship between emotional awareness and empathy.

Brain Regions Associated with Ambivalence in Healthy Adults: A PET Correlation Study / 신경정신의학

OBJECTIVES: The present study investigated the brain regions that correlate with ambivalence in schizotypy, a latent personality organization that is proposed to precede and contribute to the liability of developing schizophrenia. METHODS: Using 18-FDG PET scan, we investigated the brain activity of twenty one normal healthy subjects during the resting state. Questionnaires, including the Korean Version of Schizotypal Ambivalence Scale (K-SAS), were administrated after the scan in order to assess the self-rated individual differences in ambivalence. RESULTS: The Schzotypal Ambivalence Scale (SAS) scores showed positive correlation with the metabolic rates in the left parahippocampal gyrus and the fornix. In contrast, the Ambivalence over Expression of Emotion Questionnaire (AEQ) scores showed negative correlation with the metabolic rates in the right putamen. Although scores of the two ambivalence scales correlated positively (Pearson correlation coefficient 0.477, p<0.050), there was no substantial overlap between the neural correlates. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that the hippocampal complex, which dysfunction has been reported to correlate with impaired information processing in schizophrenia, may underlie schizotypal ambivalence.

Brain Regions Associated With Anhedonia in Healthy Adults: a PET Correlation Study / 대한핵의학회잡지

PURPOSE: Anhedonia has been proposed to be the result of a basic neurophysiologic dysfunction and a vulnerability marker that precede and contribute to the liability of developing schizophrenia. We hypothesized that anhedonia, as a construct reflecting the decreased capacity to experience pleasure, should be associated with decreased positive hedonic affect trait. This study examined the relationship between anhedonia and positive hedonic affect trait and searched for the brain regions which correlate with anhedonia in normal subjects. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using 18F-FDG PET scan, we investigated the brain activity of twenty one subjects during resting state. Questionnaires were administrated after the scan in order to assess the self-rated individual differences in physical/social anhedonia and positive/negative affect traits. RESULTS: Negative correlation between physical anhedonia score and positive affect trait score was significant (Pearson coefficient=-0.440, p< 0.05). The subjects' physical and social anhedonia scores showed positive correlation with metabolic rates in the cerebellum and negative correlation with metabolic rates in the inferior temporal gyrus and middle frontal gyrus. In addition, the positive affect trait score positively correlated with various areas, most prominent with the inferior temporal gyrus. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that neural substrates, such as the inferior temporal gyrus and prefrontal-cerebellar circuit, which dysfunction has been proposed to be involved with the cognitive deficits of schizophrenia, may also play a significant role in the liability of affective deficits like anhedonia.