Do fearful eyes activate empathy-related brain regions in individuals with callous traits?
Psychopathy, a developmental disorder characterized by profound social disturbance, is associated with impaired recognition of distress cues. Since distress processing and moral socialization are closely linked, uncovering techniques to improve distress recognition could have positive treatment implications for developmental disorders that feature empathy impairments. Previous studies demonstrate that fear-recognition deficits can be remedied by redirecting attention to critical cues (the eyes for fearful faces). However, it remains unclear whether this manipulation increases activity in empathy-related brain regions, or has an alternate compensatory effect that may not promote prosocial behaviours. In this fMRI study, a community sample of individuals with high vs low callous traits completed an emotion recognition task that varied whether the most or least socially meaningful facial features were visible (the eyes were isolated or occluded). For fearful faces, individuals with high callous traits showed significantly less amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex activity than those with low callous traits when the eyes were occluded, but not when they were isolated. Consistent with recent models of the amygdala that emphasize orientation to disambiguate stimuli rather than represent distress, individuals with low trait empathy showed greater amygdala activity to the least vs most socially meaningful features of fearful faces.
Program in Neuroscience, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.
Thida
T
Han
Gésine L
GL
Alders
Steven G
SG
Greening
Richard W J
RW
Neufeld
Derek G V
DG
Mitchell
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D019955:Conduct Disorder / Q000473:pathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D004645:Empathy / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult
D010100:Oxygen