Impairment in Cognitive and Affective Empathy in Patients with Brain Lesions: Anatomical and Cognitive Correlates

TLDR

The study aimed to assess how focal brain lesions affect cognitive and affective empathy and to determine the role of specific cognitive functions such as flexibility and emotional processing. Researchers compared empathic responses of 36 prefrontal‑lesion patients, 15 parietal‑lesion patients, and 19 healthy controls. Prefrontal lesions, particularly orbitofrontal and medial regions, caused significant deficits in both cognitive and affective empathy, with left‑ and right‑hemisphere prefrontal damage impairing empathy, right‑hemisphere lesions also affecting parietal patients, and the data revealing a dissociation between the cognitive correlates of affective and cognitive empathy.

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present study was designed to examine the degree of impairment in cognitive and affective empathy among patients with focal brain lesions, and the contribution of specific cognitive abilities (such as cognitive flexibility and processing of emotional information), to empathy. The cognitive and affective empathic response of patients with localized prefrontal lesions (n=36) was compared to responses of patients with parietal lesions (n=15) and healthy control subjects (n=19). Results indicate that patients with prefrontal lesions (especially those with lesions involving the orbitoprefrontal and medial regions) were significantly impaired in both cognitive and affective empathy as compared to parietal patients and healthy controls. When the damage was restricted to the prefrontal cortex, either left- or right-hemisphere lesions resulted in impaired empathy. However, when the lesion involved the right hemisphere, patients with parietal lesions were also impaired. The pattern of relationships between cognitive performance and empathy suggested dissociation between the cognitive correlates of affective and cognitive empathy.