| Objective: Empathy,including cognitive and emotional empathy,refers to the ability to understand and share the emotional states of others.As a sociocognitive ability,empathy plays a very important role in our interpersonal interactions.There have been few studies on empathic damage in schizotypal personality traits,but the results are inconsistent.The neural mechanism of empathy is still unclear,studies have shown that both cognitive and emotional empathy involve the specific brain region of the inferior frontal gyrus(IFG).This study intends to compare the empathy ability of schizotypal personality traits and healthy subjects through the Chinese version of the Multifaceted Empathy Test(MET-C).Secondly,healthy subjects were used to explore whether high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation(HD-tDCS)could regulate cognitive and emotional empathy by different polar stimulations of right IFG,and then to explore the relationship between empathy and IFG and the role of HD-tDCS in regulating social cognitive ability.The results were applied to schizophrenic personality traits to explore the effect of HD-tDCS on improving empathic impairment in schizophrenic personality traits.Finally,the results were applied to the schizotypal personality traits to explore the role of HD-tDCS in improving empathic impairment in schizotypal personality traits.Methods Study 1: Thirty-six schizotypal personality traits and thirty-four healthy controls were recruited in the study,the empathy ability of the two groups was compared by MET-C and the Chinese version of the interpersonal reactivity index(IRI-C).Study 2: Twenty-three healthy subjects were selected,and each subject was randomized to receive three types of stimulation conditions(i.e.,anodal,cathodal,and sham stimulation).All subjects completed neuropsychological tests(MoCA,IRI-C,HAMA,and HAMD)prior to the first stimulation,the interval between each stimulation was not less than 7 days.MET-C was tested immediately after each stimulation.The stimulation targets and parameters of HD-tDCS were set according to previous studies.Study 3: Twenty-five schizotypal personality traits were selected,14 received anodal HD-tDCS and 11 received sham stimulation.All subjects completed MET-C and neuropsychological tests(MoCA,IRI-C,HAMA,and HAMD),followed by continuous stimulation for five days,compared the improvement of empathy ability between the HD-tDCS active stimulation group and HD-tDCS sham stimulation group.Results Study 1: The scores of the schizotypal personality traits group were significantly lower than healthy control group in the accuracy of cognitive empathy(P =0.003),and in the response time of cognitive empathy,the scores of the schizotypal personality traits group were significantly longer than the health control group(P =0.038).In the emotional empathy,the scores of the schizotypal personality traits group were significantly lower than the health control group(P = 0.045).Study 2:(1)The accuracy of cognitive empathy has a significant main effect on the stimulation condition(F(2,68)= 8.779,P = 0.001).Post hoc tests found the accuracy of cognitive empathy under cathodal stimulation was significantly lower than that under sham stimulation(P = 0.038)and anodal stimulation(P < 0.001),while the accuracy of cognitive empathy had marginal difference between anodal stimulation and sham stimulation(P = 0.077).(2)There was no significant difference in the response time of cognitive empathy under the three kinds of stimulation conditions.(3)There was no significant difference in emotional empathy under the three kinds of stimulation conditions.Study 3: Before stimulation,there were no significant differences in the accuracy and response time of cognitive empathy as well as emotional empathy rating between active stimulation group and sham stimulation group(P > 0.05),and the baseline was stable.After stimulation,the accuracy(P < 0.001)and response time(P = 0.023)of cognitive empathy in the active stimulation group were significantly improved,and there was no difference in the rating of emotional empathy before and after stimulation(P > 0.05).In the sham stimulation group,the response time of cognitive empathy was significantly shorter after stimulation than before stimulation(P = 0.01),but there was no significant difference in the accuracy of cognitive empathy and emotional empathy rating before and after stimulation(P > 0.05).Conclusion(1)Schizotypal personality traits has cognitive empathy and emotional empathy impairments.(2)Right IFG plays an important role in cognitive empathy,HD-tDCS can effectively regulate social cognitive abilities such as empathy.(3)Anodal HD-tDCS can improve cognitive empathy of schizotypal personality traits. |
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