Prefrontal Cortex and Empathic Response

In a study published in the MIT Press Journals, Shamay-Tsoory et al investigated empathy deficits after prefrontal damage. Patients with localized lesions in the prefrontal cortex were tested for empathic response, and they were compared to patients with posterior lesions as well as healthy control subjects. In order to study cognitive processes involved with empathy, they also looked at the relationships between empathy scores and performance on tasks that assess processes of cognitive flexibility, affect recognition, and theory of mind. They found that patients with prefrontal lesions, especially with damaged ventromedial prefrontal cortexes, had very impaired empathy abilities compared to those with posterior lesions and healthy subjects. Posterior lesion patients’ results were divided by hemisphere: if damaged in the right hemisphere they were impaired, but if damaged in the left, they were similar to healthy controls. These findings, along with other relationships between empathy and task performances, indicated that the right ventromedial cortex is important in integrating cognition that is crucial to producing empathic response. Also, more generally, they support that the prefrontal brain structures are necessary for mediating empathic responses.

Hopefully more confirmation of the importance of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in empathy/empathic response will contribute to better diagnoses and understanding behind seemingly odd social consequences of those with this brain damage. Perhaps this will even allow researchers to tap into personality functions and disorders and how the brain plays a role in empathic behaviors.