title: Female specific anterior cingulate abnormality and its association with empathic disability in schizophrenia.
abstract: Evidence suggests that impairments of empathy are present in schizophrenia and that such deficits lead to social dysfunction. However, the relationship between brain morphological abnormalities of the disorder and empathic disabilities has not been fully investigated. As the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is one of the critical structures for empathy processing, the pathology of this structure might be a major source of social dysfunction, including interpersonal miscommunication in schizophrenia. In addition, as recent studies suggest that different facets of empathic ability depend on different subdivisions of the ACC, pathology of each subdivision would affect the empathic disability of schizophrenia differentially. Structural MRI data were acquired at 3.0 T from 24 schizophrenic patients and 20 healthy participants, and the volumes of ventral and dorsal ACC were measured and compared between the groups. Subjects' empathic abilities were evaluated using a multidimensional questionnaire, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). The relationships of structural abnormalities with empathic disabilities were investigated, by correlating ACC subdivisional volumes with each IRI subscale score. Female schizophrenic patients exhibited volume reductions in the ventral ACC bilaterally and in the left dorsal ACC compared with healthy subjects. Schizophrenic patients performed poorly on fantasy and personal distress subscales of the IRI. Furthermore, volumes of the left dorsal ACC were inversely correlated with personal distress subscale scores within female patients with schizophrenia. These results suggest that pathology of specific ACC subdivisions would have an impact on specific empathic disabilities in schizophrenia, with potential gender specificity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, 54 Kawara-cho, Shogoin, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan. fwiz3668@kuhp.kyoto-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Hironobu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fujiwara
authors.forename: Mitsuaki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shimizu
authors.forename: Kazuyuki
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hirao
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Miyata
authors.forename: Chihiro
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Namiki
authors.forename: Nobukatsu
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sawamoto
authors.forename: Hidenao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fukuyama
authors.forename: Takuji
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hayashi
authors.forename: Toshiya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Murai
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000473:pathology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012727:Sex Characteristics