Smart Ageing International Research Center, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
Neuroimage. 2013 Aug 15;77:222-36. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.04.004. Epub 2013 Apr 8.
Empathizing is defined as the drive to identify the mental states of others in order to predict their behavior and respond with an appropriate emotion. Systemizing is defined as the drive to analyze a system in terms of the rules that govern it to predict its behavior. We undertook voxel-by-voxel investigations of regional white matter volume (rWMV) and fractional anisotropy (FA) of diffusion tensor imaging to discover the WM structural correlates of empathizing, systemizing, and their difference (D score: systemizing-empathizing). Whole brain analyses of covariance revealed that across both sexes, the D score was negatively correlated with rWMV in the WM area in the bilateral temporal lobe, near the right inferior frontal gyrus, near the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, and near the posterior cingulate cortex and positively correlated with FA in an area involving the superior longitudinal fasciculus. Post-hoc analyses revealed that these associations were generally formed by both the correlation between WM structures and empathizing as well as the opposite correlation between WM structures and systemizing. A significant effect of interaction between sex and the D score on rWMV, which was mainly observed because of a positive correlation between rWMV and empathizing in females and a negative correlation between rWMV and systemizing in females, was found in an area close to the right inferior parietal lobule and temporoparietal junction. Our results suggest that WM structures involving the default mode network and the mirror neuron system support empathizing, and that a WM structure relating to the external attention system supports systemizing. Further, our results revealed an overlap between positive/negative WM structural correlates of empathizing and negative/positive WM structural correlates of systemizing despite little correlation between empathizing and systemizing, which supports the previously held idea that there is a trade-off between empathizing and systemizing in the brain.
共情被定义为识别他人心理状态的驱动力，以便预测他们的行为并做出相应的情绪反应。系统化被定义为分析一个系统的规则，以预测其行为的驱动力。我们进行了体素对体素的区域白质体积(rWMV)和弥散张量成像的各向异性分数(FA)的研究，以发现共情、系统化及其差异(D 分数：系统化-共情)的 WM 结构相关性。全脑协方差分析显示，在两性中，D 分数与双侧颞叶 WM 区、右侧额下回附近、腹内侧前额皮质附近以及后扣带回皮质附近的 rWMV 呈负相关，与包括上纵束的区域的 FA 呈正相关。事后分析表明，这些关联通常是由 WM 结构与共情之间的相关性以及 WM 结构与系统化之间的相反相关性共同形成的。发现性别与 D 分数之间的交互作用对 rWMV 有显著影响，这主要是由于女性 rWMV 与共情呈正相关，与系统化呈负相关。在一个接近右侧顶下小叶和颞顶联合区的区域发现了这一效应。我们的结果表明，默认模式网络和镜像神经元系统所涉及的 WM 结构支持共情，而与外部注意系统相关的 WM 结构支持系统化。此外，尽管共情与系统化之间相关性较小，但我们的结果显示共情的正/负 WM 结构相关性与系统化的负/正 WM 结构相关性之间存在重叠，这支持了大脑中存在共情和系统化之间权衡的观点。
