Table 1.
Error rate and percentage of damage to each region of interest in the ‘empathy network’ for the 10 patients with network lesions
| Case: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Error rate: | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 50 | 40 | 30 | 100 | 100 | 20 |
| Prefrontal cortex | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8.8 | 0 | 0 | 49.8 | 6.7 | 0 | 0 |
| Orbitofrontal gyrus | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5.0 | 0 | 0 | 3.6 | 0 | 0 |
| STG pole | 14 | 0 | 2.4 | 1.4 | 86.7 | 1.5 | 3.5 | 84.3 | 0 | 0 |
| MTG pole | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 66.0 | 0 | 0 | 57.8 | 0 | 0 |
| Temporal pole | 8.9 | 0 | 1.6 | 0.9 | 79.1 | 0.9 | 2.2 | 74.6 | 0 | 0 |
| Anterior cingulate | 0 | 1.3 | 0 | 0 | 0.6 | 0 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 |
| Anterior insula | 77.3 | 0 | 57.3 | 47.2 | 95.0 | 39.0 | 23.6 | 96.8 | 0 | 14.4 |
| Amygdala | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3.1 | 1.9 | 0 | 51.4 | 9.4 | 0 |
MTG = middle temporal gyrus; STG = superior temporal gyrus.
Given the strong association between impaired affective empathy and infarct in right temporal pole, we divided temporal pole into superior temporal gyrus pole and middle temporal gyrus pole, to identify the area most closely associated with impaired affective empathy.