| Objective Empathy and emotion processing are important parts of social cognitive neuroscience,they are fundamental for the success of human relationships and might have a crucial role in human communication. Although neuropsychological studies of individuals with epilepsy have not demonstrated a specific pattern of impairment, in patients with epilepsy non-social cognitive functions including memory, language, and attention deficits have been studied for many years, whereas social cognitive abilities have received little attention. Patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy(IGE) have long been suffered from communication problems, interpersonal difficulties and face negative emotional and psychosocial consequences. We seek to explore whether there are dissociable pattern of deficit on empathy in people with idiopathic generalized epilepsy and the correlation between empathy and emotion recognition. As previous studies have indicated that the frontal cortex is a key region in social cognition, the aim of this study is also to find new evidences to support the opinion.Method After 24-hour EEG monitoring, 62 people with idiopathic generalized epilepsy were administered with a neuropsychological battery for basic cognitive assessment and then were tested with an empathy scale(IRI-C), the Eye Basic Emotion Discrimination Task(EBEDT) and the Eye Complex Emotion Discrimination Task(ECEDT).Results Compared with healthy controls, people with epilepsy obtained significantly lower on the total score and the cognitive empathy score including perspective-taking and fantasy subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index-China(46.39±9.74vs50.99±9.97,t=-2.893,P=0.004;23.31±7.10vs27.24±6.22,t=-3.974,P=0.000;10.18±4.21vs11.84±3.67,t=-2.838,P=0.005;13.13±4.46vs15.40±3.84,t=-3.698,P=0.000, respectively). In contrast, the epilepsy individuals did not score significantly different on the affective empathy, empathic concern and personal distress subscales(P>0.05, respectively). Patients with frontal epileptiform discharges suffered the most on the total empathy score, cognitive empathy and perspective-taking subscale when compared with other three groups of individuals(P<0.05,respectively), whereas the groups did not differ from each other in affective empathy, empathic concern and personal distress subscales(P>0.05, respectively). No correlation was found between the empathy ability and other cognitive neuropsychological tests. people with epilepsy obtained significantly lower score in recognizing happy(19.3±2.0 vs. 19.9±0.2), angry(17.9±2.0 vs. 18.9±1.0), sadness(18.1±2.3 vs. 19.2±1.0), fear(16.4±1.9 vs. 17.6±1.3), disgust(17.6 ± 2.1 vs. 18.6 ± 1.2) and surprise(18.3 ± 1.5 vs. 19.1 ± 1.1)(P <0.05,respectively),as well as complex emotions [(23.3±4.2) vs.(27.1±2.8), P<0.05]. There was no significant difference between the two groups in gender recognition(P>0.05). Correlation analysis revealed significant relation between the total correct number of EBEDT and the ECEDT in epilepsy group(r=0.716, P=0.000).Significant associations were found between the ECEDT and the total empathy score(r=0.261,P=0.043).Conclusion Patients with IGE is associated with a dissociated pattern combining impaired cognitive empathy and preserved affective one, which leads to a double-dissociation, supports the notion that affective and cognitive empathy are two distinct abilities. The eye emotion recognition abilities were impaired also and the impairments in social cognition may be caused by deficits in frontal lobe function. |
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