Study of empathy for pain in migraineurs without aura / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the capability of empathy for pain in migraineurs without aura.Methods Thirty migraineurs without aura and thirty matched healthy controls were recruited.Picturecued Empathy for pain paradigm was used to compare the capability of empathy in the migraine group with that in the control group.Results Compared with the control group,the migraine group had diminished ability to discriminate painful from nonpainful pictures,and the discrimination accuracy was significantly reduced ((2.55±0.61) vs (2.88±0.38);t=-2.505,P=0.01).In the task laterality,there was no difference in discrimination accuracy between two groups(P＞0.05).The rating scores of patients were evidently smaller than those of control group ((3.01±0.52) vs (3.37±0.47);t=-2.827,P=0.006).Pearson correlation analysis showed that the age of migraineurs was negatively correlated with the discrimination accuracy(r=-0.393,P =0.031),and there was no correlation between migraineurs' educational years,disease course,severity,Mini-mental State Examination,Hamilton Anxiety Scale,Hamilton Depression Scale,Verbal Fluency Test,Stroop Test and the idex of empathy for pain (all P＞0.05).Conclusion Migraineurs without aura have deficiency in the capability of empathy for pain.