Li Xianrui, Peng Chuyao, Qin Facai, Luo Qian, Ren Zhiting, Wang Xueyang, Feng Qiuyang, Liu Cheng, Li Yang, Wei Dongtao, Qiu Jiang
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, China; Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing 400715, China.
School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
Neuroscience. 2024 Feb 16;539:12-20. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2023.12.014. Epub 2024 Jan 3.
Emotions rely on bodily states, and perceiving the emotions of others depends on awareness of one's own emotional state. However, the intercorrelations among interoception, alexithymia, and empathy are not well understood, and the neural mechanisms behind this connection are also largely unknown. To address these issues, 297 college students participated in this study, completing measures of interoceptive sensibility (IS), empathy and alexithymia and undergoing resting-state fMRI scans. The functional connectivity of the amygdala was analysed to identify the neural substrates of alexithymia, and mediation analyses were conducted to examine the mediation effect of alexithymia and alexithymia-specific amygdala functional connectivity on the relationship between IS and empathy. The results showed that higher levels of IS were associated with increased cognitive empathy through weakened alexithymia. Functional connectivity analysis indicated that right basolateral amygdala (BLA)-left precuneus connectivity was negatively related to alexithymia, while right BLA-left precentral gyrus connectivity was positively related to alexithymia. Furthermore, right BLA-left precuneus connectivity was found to mediate the impact of interoception on cognitive empathy. In conclusion, this study provides valuable insights into the relationships among IS, alexithymia, and empathy. The right BLA-left precuneus connectivity may serve as a shared neural substrate between interoception and cognitive empathy.
情绪依赖于身体状态，而感知他人的情绪则取决于对自身情绪状态的觉知。然而，对于内感受、述情障碍和共情之间的相互关系尚未得到充分理解，而且这种联系背后的神经机制也在很大程度上未知。为了解决这些问题，297名大学生参与了本研究，完成了内感受敏感性（IS）、共情和述情障碍的测量，并接受了静息态功能磁共振成像扫描。分析杏仁核的功能连接以确定述情障碍的神经基础，并进行中介分析以检验述情障碍和特定于述情障碍的杏仁核功能连接对IS与共情之间关系的中介作用。结果表明，较高水平的IS通过减弱述情障碍与认知共情的增加相关。功能连接分析表明，右侧基底外侧杏仁核（BLA）-左侧楔前叶连接与述情障碍呈负相关，而右侧BLA-左侧中央前回连接与述情障碍呈正相关。此外，发现右侧BLA-左侧楔前叶连接介导了内感受对认知共情的影响。总之，本研究为IS、述情障碍和共情之间的关系提供了有价值的见解。右侧BLA-左侧楔前叶连接可能作为内感受和认知共情之间的共享神经基础。
