Division of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
Department of Behavioral Medicine, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Tokyo, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2019 Jun 20;9(1):8856. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-45106-1.
Empathizing is defined as "the drive to identify another's mental states and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion" and systemizing is defined as "the drive to the drive to analyze and construct rule-based systems". While mean diffusivity (MD) has been robustly associated with several cognitive traits and disorders related with empathizing and systemizing, its direct correlation with empathizing and systemizing remains to be investigated. We undertook voxel-by-voxel investigations of regional MD to discover microstructural correlates of empathizing, systemizing, and the discrepancy between them (D score: systemizing - empathizing). Whole-brain analyses of covariance revealed that across both sexes, empathizing was positively correlated with MD of (a) an anatomical cluster that primarily spreads in the areas in and adjacent to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, left anterior to the middle cingulate cortex, and left insula and (b) an anatomical cluster of the left postcentral gyrus and left rolandic operculum. The former overlaps with positive MD correlates of cooperativeness. The D score and systemizing did not show significant correlations. In conclusion, while increased MD has generally been associated with reduced neural tissues and possibly area function, higher empathizing and cooperativeness were commonly reflected by greater MD values in areas (a) that mainly overlap with areas that play a key role in emotional salience and empathy. In addition, higher empathizing was correlated with greater MD values in areas (b) that play a key role in the mirror neuron system.
共情被定义为“识别他人心理状态并对这些状态做出适当情绪反应的驱动力”，而系统化则被定义为“分析和构建基于规则的系统的驱动力”。虽然平均扩散系数（MD）与几个与共情和系统化相关的认知特征和障碍密切相关，但它与共情和系统化的直接相关性仍有待研究。我们进行了体素级别的区域 MD 研究，以发现与共情、系统化以及它们之间差异（D 分数：系统化-共情）相关的微观结构。全脑协方差分析显示，在男女两性中，共情与（a）一个主要分布在左背外侧前额叶皮质、左前扣带皮层和左岛叶及其附近区域的解剖学簇以及（b）左中央后回和左 Rolandic 脑盖的解剖学簇的 MD 呈正相关。前者与合作的 MD 正相关重叠。D 分数和系统化与 MD 均无显著相关性。总之，虽然 MD 增加通常与神经组织减少和可能的区域功能降低有关，但较高的共情和合作通常反映了（a）与情绪显著和共情相关的关键区域的 MD 值较高，而较高的共情则与（b）在镜像神经元系统中发挥关键作用的区域的 MD 值较高相关。
