Altered empathy-related resting-state functional connectivity in patients with bipolar disorder.

Empathy is the ability to generate emotional responses (i.e., cognitive empathy) and to make cognitive inferences (i.e., affective empathy) to other people's emotions. Empirical evidence suggests that patients with bipolar disorder (BD) exhibit impairment in cognitive empathy, but findings on affective empathy are inconsistent. Few studies have examined the neural mechanisms of cognitive and affective empathy in patients with BD. In this study, we examined the empathy-related resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in BD patients. Thirty-seven patients with BD and 42 healthy controls completed the self-report Questionnaires of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE), the Yoni behavioural task, and resting-sate fMRI brain scans. Group comparison of empathic ability was conducted. The interactions between group and empathic ability on seed-based whole brain rsFC were examined. BD patients scored lower on the Online Simulation subscale of the QCAE and showed positive correlations between cognitive empathy and the rsFC of the dorsal Medial Prefrontal Cortex (dmPFC) with the lingual gyrus. The correlations between cognitive empathy and the rsFC of the temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) with the fusiform gyrus, the cerebellum and the parahippocampus were weaker in BD patients than that in healthy controls. These findings highlight the underlying neural mechanisms of empathy impairments in BD patients.

Validation of the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy in patients with schizophrenia, major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder.

INTRODUCTION: Alteration of empathy is common in patients with psychiatric disorders. Reliable and valid assessment tools for measuring empathy of clinical samples is needed. The Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE) is a newly-developed instrument to capture cognitive and affective components of empathy. This study aimed to validate the QCAE and compared self-reported empathy between clinical groups with varied psychiatric diagnoses and healthy sample. METHODS: The present study performed factor analysis for the QCAE on clinical samples in the Chinese setting (n = 534), including patients with schizophrenia (n = 158), bipolar disorder (n = 213) and major depressive disorder (n = 163). Internal consistency, internal correlation and convergent validity was examined in the subsample (n = 361). Group comparison among patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and healthy controls (n = 107) was conducted to assess the discriminant validity. RESULTS: Our results indicated acceptable factor model, good reliability and validity of the QCAE. Impaired cognitive empathy was found in clinical samples, especially in patients with schizophrenia, while higher affective empathy was found in patients with bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder. CONCLUSION: The QCAE is a useful tool in assessing empathy in patients with varied psychiatric diagnoses.

Social anhedonia across mental disorders: A validation study of the Anticipatory and Consummatory Interpersonal Pleasure Scale.

The present study validated the Chinese version of the Anticipatory and Consummatory Interpersonal Pleasure Scale (ACIPS) in a group of patients with mental disorders. The results replicated the four-factor structure of the ACIPS in a Chinese setting and showed good discrimination validity.

Identifying Schizo-Obsessive Comorbidity by Tract-Based Spatial Statistics and Probabilistic Tractography.

A phenomenon in schizophrenia patients that deserves attention is the high comorbidity rate with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Little is known about the neurobiological basis of schizo-obsessive comorbidity (SOC). We aimed to investigate whether specific changes in white matter exist in patients with SOC and the relationship between such abnormalities and clinical parameters. Twenty-eight patients with SOC, 28 schizophrenia patients, 30 OCD patients, and 30 demographically matched healthy controls were recruited. Using Tract-based Spatial Statistics and Probabilistic Tractography, we examined the pattern of white matter abnormalities in these participants. We also used ANOVA and Support Vector Classification of various white matter indices and structural connection probability to further examine white matter changes among the 4 groups. We found that patients with SOC had decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) and increased radial diffusivity in the right sagittal stratum and the left crescent of the fornix/stria terminalis compared with healthy controls. We also found changed connection probability in the Default Mode Network, the Subcortical Network, the Attention Network, the Task Control Network, the Visual Network, the Somatosensory Network, and the cerebellum in the SOC group compared with the other 3 groups. The classification results further revealed that FA features could differentiate the SOC group from the other 3 groups with an accuracy of .78. These findings highlight the specific white matter abnormalities found in patients with SOC.

Validation and extension of the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy in the Chinese setting.

The Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE) is a commonly used instrument in empathy research. However, this scale has not been validated in the Chinese context. We examined the psychometric properties and structure of the QCAE in a Chinese sample consisting of 1224 college students. The whole sample was split into two halves for exploratory factor analysis (EFA; n = 617) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; n = 607). A subsample (n = 351) completed the Chinese versions of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) to examine convergent validity and the Revised Social Anhedonia Scale (RSAS) to examine the discriminate validity. Finally, 79 participants of the above subsample were retested after a 4-week interval. Results from EFA and CFA suggested a five-factor model, namely Perspective Taking, Online Simulation, Emotional Contagion, Proximal Responsivity, and Peripheral Responsivity. The internal consistency was .86 and test-retest reliability was .76. Scores on the QCAE positively correlated with scores on the IRI and negatively correlated with scores on the RSAS. The Chinese version of the QCAE exhibited good factor structure, reliability, and validity. Specific relationships between empathy and social anhedonia were also demonstrated.