Brain structural and functional substrates of personal distress in empathy

Siyang Luo; Shengqi Zhong; Yiyi Zhu; Cong Wang; Junkai Yang; Li Gu; Yingyu Huang; Xiaolin Xie; Shaofeng Zheng; Hui Zhou; Xiang Wu

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00099

Brain structural and functional substrates of personal distress in empathy

Siyang Luo^*
, Shengqi Zhong
, Yiyi Zhu
, Cong Wang
, Junkai Yang
, Li Gu
, Yingyu Huang
, Xiaolin Xie
, Shaofeng Zheng
, Hui Zhou
, Xiang Wu

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Empathy is the capacity to understand and experience the feeling state of others. While individuals attribute negative empathic responses to their own feelings, they would endure personal distress that can be harmful to social interaction. However, the neural mechanism of personal distress remains unclear. Here, we examined the neural substrates of personal distress by combining structural (Voxel-based morphometry (VBM)) and functional (resting-state functional connectivity (FC) analysis) MRI approaches in 53 college students (aged 19–26). A negative correlation was found between a trait measure of personal distress and gray matter (GM) volume in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). FC analyses with the dmPFC as a seed further revealed that the connectivity between the dmPFC and posterior insula was positively correlated with the personal distress, and the connectivities between the dmPFC and the anterior middle cingulate cortex, left lateral frontal cortex, and left inferior parietal gyrus were negatively correlated with the personal distress. Our results suggested that personal distress is underlain by neural substrates associated with both cognitive and affective mechanisms. Taken together, the structural and functional correlates of personal distress revealed in the present findings shed new light into the understanding of empathy. © 2018 Luo, Zhong, Zhu, Wang, Yang, Gu, Huang, Xie, Zheng, Zhou and Wu.

Original language	English
Article number	99
Journal	Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
Volume	12
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00099
Publication status	Published - 15 May 2018
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Publication details (e.g. title, author(s), publication statuses and dates) are captured on an “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” basis at the time of record harvesting from the data source. Suggestions for further amendments or supplementary information can be sent to [email protected].

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31371129), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities grant (Project 16wkpy28), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Project 2017A030310553), the Science Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (Project 17YJCZH121) and Research Project of Sun Yat-sen University (26000-31620003). We thank Zhengjia Dai for the discussion of MRI data acquisition and analysis.

Research Keywords

Empathy
Functional connectivity
MRI
Personal distress
Voxel-based morphometry

Publisher's Copyright Statement

This full text is made available under CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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title = "Brain structural and functional substrates of personal distress in empathy",

abstract = "Empathy is the capacity to understand and experience the feeling state of others. While individuals attribute negative empathic responses to their own feelings, they would endure personal distress that can be harmful to social interaction. However, the neural mechanism of personal distress remains unclear. Here, we examined the neural substrates of personal distress by combining structural (Voxel-based morphometry (VBM)) and functional (resting-state functional connectivity (FC) analysis) MRI approaches in 53 college students (aged 19–26). A negative correlation was found between a trait measure of personal distress and gray matter (GM) volume in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). FC analyses with the dmPFC as a seed further revealed that the connectivity between the dmPFC and posterior insula was positively correlated with the personal distress, and the connectivities between the dmPFC and the anterior middle cingulate cortex, left lateral frontal cortex, and left inferior parietal gyrus were negatively correlated with the personal distress. Our results suggested that personal distress is underlain by neural substrates associated with both cognitive and affective mechanisms. Taken together, the structural and functional correlates of personal distress revealed in the present findings shed new light into the understanding of empathy. {\textcopyright} 2018 Luo, Zhong, Zhu, Wang, Yang, Gu, Huang, Xie, Zheng, Zhou and Wu.",

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AU - Luo, Siyang

AU - Zhong, Shengqi

AU - Zhu, Yiyi

AU - Wang, Cong

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AU - Gu, Li

AU - Huang, Yingyu

AU - Xie, Xiaolin

AU - Zheng, Shaofeng

AU - Zhou, Hui

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AB - Empathy is the capacity to understand and experience the feeling state of others. While individuals attribute negative empathic responses to their own feelings, they would endure personal distress that can be harmful to social interaction. However, the neural mechanism of personal distress remains unclear. Here, we examined the neural substrates of personal distress by combining structural (Voxel-based morphometry (VBM)) and functional (resting-state functional connectivity (FC) analysis) MRI approaches in 53 college students (aged 19–26). A negative correlation was found between a trait measure of personal distress and gray matter (GM) volume in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). FC analyses with the dmPFC as a seed further revealed that the connectivity between the dmPFC and posterior insula was positively correlated with the personal distress, and the connectivities between the dmPFC and the anterior middle cingulate cortex, left lateral frontal cortex, and left inferior parietal gyrus were negatively correlated with the personal distress. Our results suggested that personal distress is underlain by neural substrates associated with both cognitive and affective mechanisms. Taken together, the structural and functional correlates of personal distress revealed in the present findings shed new light into the understanding of empathy. © 2018 Luo, Zhong, Zhu, Wang, Yang, Gu, Huang, Xie, Zheng, Zhou and Wu.

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Brain structural and functional substrates of personal distress in empathy

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Research Keywords

Publisher's Copyright Statement

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