Table 2.
Brain region | Reference | Cases with lesion site n | Time post-injury | Type of injury | Conclusions |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Prefrontal and orbitofrontal hypoperfusion | Kemp et al., 2013 | 1 | 3–4 years | Caudate haemorrhage | Prefrontal and orbitofrontal hypoperfusion → impaired affective perspective-taking and impaired recognition of negative emotions |
Right medial prefronal and orbitofrontal | Fisher et al., 2011 | 1 | 1 and 8 years | Trauma | Right medial prefrontal lesion → acute deficits in a variety of social and executive functions; but full recovery and normal affective perspective taking by 8 years post-injury |
Left medial frontal and orbitofrontal with bilateral frontal hypoperfusion by SPECT | Grattan and Eslinger, 1992 | 1 | 26 years | Intracerebral haemorrhage | Left medial and orbitofrontal subarachnoid haemorrhage at age 7 with bilateral hypoperfusion → impaired empathy and cognitive flexibility at age 33 |
Medial prefrontal | Bird et al., 2004 | 1 | 87 and 101 days | Anterior cerebral artery stroke | Subacute bilateral medial prefrontal stroke → no clear deficits in empathy, but relative weakness in affective perspective-taking |
Right dorsomedial prefrontal | Herbet et al., 2013 | 5 | Immediately post-op, 3 months | Slow-growing tumour, surgical | Lesions caused empathy deficits immediately postoperatively, but patients recovered 3 months later |
Right prefrontal | Leigh et al., 2013 | 3 | Within 48 h | Stroke | Acute right prefrontal lesions → impaired affective perspective-taking |
Right dorsolateral prefrontal | Eslinger et al., 1997 | 1 | 5–15 years | Trauma | Right prefrontal lesion → impaired emotional empathy but intact cognitive flexibility 5–15 years after lesion age 3 |
Right inferior frontal gyrus and STG | Samson et al., 2005 | 1 | 8 months | Stroke | Right inferior frontal gyrus (and superior tempoiral gyrus lesion) → impaired inhibition of self-perspective |
Right inferior frontal gyrus, temporal pole, and insula | Herbet et al., 2013 | 5 | Immediately post-op, 3 months | Slow-growing tumour, surgical | Lesions caused perspective-taking deficits immediately post-op, but recovered 3 months later |
Right temporal pole, medial orbitofrontal | Narvid et al., 2009 | 1 | 5+ years | FTD | Right and medial orbitofrontal, temporal atrophy → impaired emotional recognition and emotional empathy |
Right temporal pole | Perry et al., 2001 | 2 | FTD | Both with right temporal pole atrophy → impaired empathy (IRI) and impaired recognition of emotion through prosody and facial expression | |
Amygdala | Stone et al., 2003 | 2 | 12 years (1) | 1 surgical | Bilateral amygdala → impaired theory of mind, affective perspective-taking |
1 herpes | |||||
Right amygdala | Leigh et al., 2013 | 27 total, 4 amygdala lesions | Within 48 h | Stroke | All with right amygdala lesions → impaired affective perspective-taking |
Bilateral amygdala | Hurlemann et al., 2010 | 2 | Urbach-Wiethe disease | Bilateral amygdala lesions → deficits in emotional but not cognitive empathy | |
Anterior insula, anterior cingulate | Gu et al., 2012 | 3 anterior insula, 3 anterior cingulate cortex, 6 other | 3–32 months | Glioma | Anterior insula lesion → impaired implicit and explicit perception of another person’s pain (emotional contagion) |
Anterior cingulate cortex | Baird et al., 2006 | 3 | Not stated | Glioma, surgery, haematoma | Right anterior cingulate cortex → impaired emotional recognitionBilateral anterior cingulate cortex → impaired theory of mind |
Right anterior insula, or its connections | Couto et al., 2013 | 2 | 18 months | Stroke | Right insular damage → no impairment; Sub-insular damage → empathy impairment |
Cerebellum | Roldan Gersch-covich et al., 2011 | 1 | 3 months | Stroke | Bilateral cerebellar lesions → impaired empathy on a variety of tests |
STG = superior temporal gyrus.