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Development of neural correlates of empathy from childhood to early adulthood: an fMRI study in boys and adult men

  • Biological Child and Adolescent Psychiatry-Original Article
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Abstract

Although empathy is rooted early in life, the ability to understand and share the emotions of others continues to develop after childhood. Here, we aimed at exploring developmental changes in the neural mechanisms underlying empathy from childhood to early adulthood. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, 47 healthy male subjects aged 8–27 years were investigated during an explicit empathy task. Emotional faces were presented and participants were either asked to infer the emotional state from the face (other-task) or to judge their own emotional response to the face (self-task). A perceptual decision on the width of faces was used as a control condition. Age-related activity increases were observed in the fusiform gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus, depending on whether subjects attributed emotions to self or other. During the self-task, activity in the right precuneus and right intraparietal sulcus decreased as a function of age. No age-related differences were observed in behavioral performance measures. Increased activity in the fusiform gyrus and in the frontal component of the human mirror neuron system with increasing age may be explained by greater experience and expertise accumulated during socio-emotional interactions. Greater recruitment of right parietal structures in younger as compared to older subjects might reflect developmental differences in the cognitive strategies to infer one’s own emotional response. This study is the first to show developmental changes in the neural mechanisms supporting empathy. Our findings may have important implications for the development of novel therapeutic interventions in clinical conditions characterized by empathy deficits, such as autism spectrum disorder.

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Notes

  1. Norms refer to the English version. No population norms are available for the German translation of the Griffith Empathy Measure, which was used in the present study. Mean scores of norms for the Griffith Empathy Measure are estimated from separate scores for younger children (7–10 years) and older children and adolescents (>11 years).

  2. Norms refer to the English version. No population norms are available for the German translation of the Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale, which was used in the present study.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all participants with their families who took part in this study. We wish to thank our colleagues in the MR and Cognitive Neurology groups at the Institute of Medicine (Research Center Jülich) for their support and helpful advice. This work was supported by the Interdisciplinary Center of Clinical Research Aachen (IZKF, N68a; K.K. and G.R.F.); the German Research Foundation (IRTG 1328; DFG-KFO112-II, TP 5; K.K. B.H.-D.); and by a fellowship for doctoral students from the German National Academic Foundation (E.G.).

Conflict of interest statement

B. H.-D. is a consultant to Eli Lilly and has received industry research funding from AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Novartis, and Janssen Cilag. All other authors have no financial relationships to disclose and declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of the RWTH Aachen, 52074, Aachen, Germany

    E. Greimel, M. Schulte-Rüther & K. Konrad

  2. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of the RWTH Aachen, 52074, Aachen, Germany

    E. Greimel & B. Herpertz-Dahlmann

  3. Cognitive Neurology Section, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3), Research Center Jülich, 52425, Jülich, Germany

    E. Greimel, M. Schulte-Rüther & G. R. Fink

  4. Department of Neurology, University Hospital Cologne, 50924, Cologne, Germany

    G. R. Fink

  5. Cognitive Neuroscience Section, Department of Biology, Bielefeld University, 33615, Bielefeld, Germany

    M. Piefke

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  1. E. Greimel
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  2. M. Schulte-Rüther
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Correspondence to E. Greimel.

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Greimel, E., Schulte-Rüther, M., Fink, G.R. et al. Development of neural correlates of empathy from childhood to early adulthood: an fMRI study in boys and adult men. J Neural Transm 117, 781–791 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-010-0404-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-010-0404-9

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