Movement Disorders Unit, Neurology Department, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Barcelona, Spain.
Biomedical Research Institute (IIB-Sant Pau), Barcelona, Spain.
J Huntingtons Dis. 2021;10(3):323-334. doi: 10.3233/JHD-210469.
Empathy is a multidimensional construct and a key component of social cognition. In Huntington's disease (HD), little is known regarding the phenomenology and the neural correlates of cognitive and affective empathy, and regarding how empathic deficits interact with other behavioral and cognitive manifestations.
To explore the cognitive and affective empathy disturbances and related behavioral and neural correlates in HD.
Clinical and sociodemographic data were obtained from 36 healthy controls (HC) and 54 gene-mutation carriers (17 premanifest and 37 early-manifest HD). The Test of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (TECA) was used to characterize cognitive (CE) and affective empathy (AE), and to explore their associations with grey matter volume (GMV) and cortical thickness (Cth).
Compared to HC, premanifest participants performed significantly worse in perspective taking (CE) and empathic distress (AE). In symptomatic participants, scores were significantly lower in almost all the TECA subscales. Several empathy subscales were associated with the severity of apathy, irritability, and cognitive deficits. CE was associated with GMV in thalamic, temporal, and occipital regions, and with Cth in parietal and temporal areas. AE was associated with GMV in the basal ganglia, limbic, occipital, and medial orbitofrontal regions, and with Cth in parieto-occipital areas.
Cognitive and affective empathy deficits are detectable early, are more severe in symptomatic participants, and involve the disruption of several fronto-temporal, parieto-occipital, basal ganglia, and limbic regions. These deficits are associated with disease severity and contribute to several behavioral symptoms, facilitating the presentation of maladaptive patterns of social interaction.
共情是一个多维度的结构，是社会认知的关键组成部分。在亨廷顿病（HD）中，对于认知和情感共情的现象学以及神经相关性，以及共情缺陷如何与其他行为和认知表现相互作用，知之甚少。
探讨 HD 中认知和情感共情障碍及其相关的行为和神经相关性。
从 36 名健康对照者（HC）和 54 名基因突变携带者（17 名前显型和 37 名早显型 HD）中获得临床和社会人口统计学数据。使用认知和情感共情测试（TECA）来描述认知共情（CE）和情感共情（AE），并探讨它们与灰质体积（GMV）和皮质厚度（Cth）的相关性。
与 HC 相比，前显型参与者在观点采择（CE）和共情困扰（AE）方面的表现明显更差。在有症状的参与者中，几乎所有 TECA 子量表的得分都显著降低。几个共情子量表与淡漠、易怒和认知缺陷的严重程度相关。CE 与丘脑、颞叶和枕叶区域的 GMV 相关，与顶叶和颞叶区域的 Cth 相关。AE 与基底节、边缘叶、枕叶和内侧眶额区域的 GMV 相关，与顶枕叶区域的 Cth 相关。
认知和情感共情缺陷在早期即可检测到，在有症状的参与者中更为严重，涉及到多个额颞叶、顶枕叶、基底节和边缘叶区域的破坏。这些缺陷与疾病严重程度相关，并导致多种行为症状，促进了不适应的社交互动模式的出现。
