In a strange case, a woman developed "hyper
empathy" after having a part of her brain called the amygdala removed in
an effort to treat her severe epilepsy, according to a report of her case.
Empathy is the ability to recognize another person's emotions.
The case was especially unusual because the amygdala is
involved in recognizing emotions, and removing it would be expected to make it
harder rather than easier for a person to read others' emotions, according to
the researchers involved in her case.
During the woman's surgery, doctors removed parts of her
temporal lobe, including the amygdala, from one side of the brain. The surgery is a common
treatment for people with severe forms of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) who
don't respond to medication.
After the surgery, the seizures she had suffered multiple
times a day stopped. But the woman reported a "new, spectacular emotional
arousal," that has persisted for 13 years to this date, the researchers
said.
Although patients with epilepsy treated with surgery have been
known to experience new psychological issues afterward, such as depression or
anxiety, "the case of this patient is surprising because her complaint is
uncommon, and fascinating: hyper empathy," said Dr. Aurélie
Richard-Mornas, a neurologist at University Hospital of Saint-Étienne in
France, who reported the case.
Her empathy seemed to transcend her body -- the woman
reported feeling physical effects along with her emotions, such as a "spin
at the heart" or an "esophageal unpleasant feeling" when
experiencing empathic sadness or anger. She reported these feelings when seeing
people on TV, meeting people in person, or reading about characters in novels,
the researchers said.
She also described an increased ability to decode others' mental states, including their
emotions, the researchers said. Her newly acquired ability to empathize was
confirmed by her family, and she performed exceptionally well in psychological
tests of empathy, the researchers said.
The case, published Aug. 14 in the journal Neurocase, is the
first in the scientific literature describing this kind of emotional change
after removing parts of the temporal lobe, Richard-Mornas said.
Kinds of empathy
Psychologists define two major forms of empathy: emotional
and cognitive.
"Emotional empathy refers to feeling another person's
emotion," Richard-Mornas said. "While cognitive empathy is the
ability to adopt the other person's point of view, or 'put oneself in his/her
shoes,' without necessarily experiencing any emotion."
It's not exactly clear how the human brain is able to
understand and re-create the mental and emotional state of another person, but
it appears that not everyone is equally good at it. For example,
people with autism are thought to have difficulty understanding other people's
intentions, and psychopaths are thought to show a lack of empathy, being unable
to experience the emotional reaction people usually have when seeing another
person in distress.
In studying the woman with hyper empathy, the researchers evaluated her
psychological condition with a series of standard tests, and found that her
mental health appeared normal.
The researchers also analyzed how the woman responded to a
questionnaire aimed at measuring empathy, made of items such as "I am good
at predicting how someone will feel" and "I get upset if I see people
suffering on news programmes." She also completed a test of recognizing
the emotions in 36 photographs of only people's eyes, and her scores were
compared to those of 10 women who served as controls.
Her performance in empathy tests was above average, and her
score on the eye test was significantly higher than that of the controls,
according to the researchers.
The missing amygdala
The amygdala is a small almond-shaped structure, sitting
deep in the temporal lobe. It appears to be involved in social interaction, and
is thought critical for quickly evaluating and responding to emotional stimuli,
such as a frightening predator or a sad face.
The new case comes in contrast to previous observations of
people who endured damage to the amygdala and suffered emotional deficits. In a
2001 study involving 22 people who had parts of their temporal lobe removed,
researchers found that people with more extensive damage to the amygdala
performed worse in learning emotional facial expressions.
However, in the absence of the amygdala, other brain
regions, and perhaps newly organized connections among them, may be responsible
for driving stronger empathy, the researchers of the new case report said. "Neural substrates of complex emotions such as empathy are poorly
understood," said Dr. Joseph Sirven, a neurologist at Mayo Clinic in
Arizona, who was not involved with the case.
"What we are finding is that there is not just one
anatomical correlate of emotion. Rather, complex emotions like empathy,
hope, etc., are likely to occur as a complex interplay from a number of areas
in the brain and the amygdala is one," Sirven said.
The woman's case suggests it is possible to have
unexpectedly re-organized neural networks after this kind of surgery, the
researchers said, and may have lessons for a better understanding of the brain.
"Most of modern neuroscience has its basis on
observations of individual cases such as this one, that help to illuminate the
complex working of the brain," Sirven said.
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