Empathy motivation is preserved following amygdala damage.

Abstract

Damage to the amygdala has been linked to impairments in empathy, typically documented as deficits in accurately identifying others' emotional experiences, especially fear. This has led some to theorize that amygdala dysfunction is a core feature of psychopathy. There is growing evidence, however, that motivation to empathize is distinct from empathic accuracy. Moreover, anecdotal observations in patients with amygdala lesions have noted their tendencies to approach, rather than avoid, empathic encounters with strangers, even when the patients have impairments in empathic accuracy. We conducted a novel investigation specifically examining empathy motivation in patients with amygdala damage. We used a free-choice paradigm to assess motivation to empathize. We found that damage to the amygdala was not associated with avoidance of affective or cognitive forms of empathy motivation. Patients with amygdala lesions (n = 21) exhibited similar levels of empathy motivation compared with patients with damage outside the amygdala (n = 22) and healthy individuals with no brain damage (n = 24). These findings suggest that amygdala damage does not necessarily disrupt the motivation to empathize. A potential implication of the findings is that amygdala damage or dysfunction may not be associated with traits such as callousness, apathy or lack of caring that are often linked to psychopathy.