Empathy-related differences in the anterior cingulate functional connectivity of regular cannabis users when compared to controls.

It has been reported that cannabis consumption affects the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a structure with a central role in mediating the empathic response. In this study, we compared psychometric scores of empathy subscales, between a group of regular cannabis users (85, users) and a group of non-consumers (51, controls). We found that users have a greater Emotional Comprehension, a cognitive empathy trait involving the understanding of the "other" emotional state.

The Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Presents Structural Variations Associated with Empathy and Emotion Regulation in Psychotherapists.

Empathic abilities have been shown to be linked with brain structural variations. Since psychotherapists constitute a population that tends to display greater empathic abilities, as shown in psychometric differences in cognitive empathy and emotional regulation, we aimed to identify cortical thickness (CT) differences between a group of professional psychotherapists and a control group. In line with the recently emphasized urge to employ more than a single workflow in cortical analyses, we utilized two cortical surface extraction and thickness estimation pipelines-CIVET and FreeSurfer.

Greater Empathic Abilities and Resting State Brain Connectivity Differences in Psychotherapists Compared to Non-psychotherapists.

In a therapeutic environment a proper regulation of the empathic response strengthens the patient-therapist relationship. Thus, it is important that psychotherapists constantly regulate their own perspective and emotions to better understand the other's affective state. We compared the empathic abilities of a group of 52 psychotherapists with a group of 92 non-psychotherapists and found psychometric differences.