Cargando…
Cognitive and emotional empathy after stimulation of brain mineralocorticoid and NMDA receptors in patients with major depression and healthy controls
Mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) are predominantly expressed in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Both brain areas are associated with social cognition, which includes cognitive empathy (ability to understand others’ emotions) and emotional empathy (ability to empathize with another person). MR...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer International Publishing
2020
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7785026/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32722659 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41386-020-0777-x |
_version_ | 1783632377034047488 |
---|---|
author | Nowacki, Jan Wingenfeld, Katja Kaczmarczyk, Michael Chae, Woo Ri Abu-Tir, Ikram Deuter, Christian Eric Piber, Dominique Hellmann-Regen, Julian Otte, Christian |
author_facet | Nowacki, Jan Wingenfeld, Katja Kaczmarczyk, Michael Chae, Woo Ri Abu-Tir, Ikram Deuter, Christian Eric Piber, Dominique Hellmann-Regen, Julian Otte, Christian |
author_sort | Nowacki, Jan |
collection | PubMed |
description | Mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) are predominantly expressed in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Both brain areas are associated with social cognition, which includes cognitive empathy (ability to understand others’ emotions) and emotional empathy (ability to empathize with another person). MR stimulation improves memory and executive functioning in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and healthy controls, and leads to glutamate-mediated N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDA-R) signaling. We examined whether the beneficial effects of MR stimulation can be extended to social cognition (empathy), and whether DCS would have additional beneficial effects. In this double-blind placebo-controlled single-dose study, we randomized 116 unmedicated MDD patients (mean age 34 years, 78% women) and 116 age-, sex-, and education years-matched healthy controls to four conditions: MR stimulation (fludrocortisone (0.4 mg) + placebo), NMDA-R stimulation (placebo + D-cycloserine (250 mg)), MR and NMDA-R stimulation (both drugs), or placebo. Cognitive and emotional empathy were assessed by the Multifaceted Empathy Test. The study was registered on clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03062150). MR stimulation increased cognitive empathy across groups, whereas NMDA-R stimulation decreased cognitive empathy in MDD patients only. Independent of receptor stimulation, cognitive empathy did not differ between groups. Emotional empathy was not affected by MR or NMDA-R stimulation. However, MDD patients showed decreased emotional empathy compared with controls but, according to exploratory analyses, only for positive emotions. We conclude that MR stimulation has beneficial effects on cognitive empathy in MDD patients and healthy controls, whereas NMDA-R stimulation decreased cognitive empathy in MDD patients. It appears that MR rather than NMDA-R are potential treatment targets to modulate cognitive empathy in MDD. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7785026 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Springer International Publishing |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77850262021-01-14 Cognitive and emotional empathy after stimulation of brain mineralocorticoid and NMDA receptors in patients with major depression and healthy controls Nowacki, Jan Wingenfeld, Katja Kaczmarczyk, Michael Chae, Woo Ri Abu-Tir, Ikram Deuter, Christian Eric Piber, Dominique Hellmann-Regen, Julian Otte, Christian Neuropsychopharmacology Article Mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) are predominantly expressed in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Both brain areas are associated with social cognition, which includes cognitive empathy (ability to understand others’ emotions) and emotional empathy (ability to empathize with another person). MR stimulation improves memory and executive functioning in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and healthy controls, and leads to glutamate-mediated N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDA-R) signaling. We examined whether the beneficial effects of MR stimulation can be extended to social cognition (empathy), and whether DCS would have additional beneficial effects. In this double-blind placebo-controlled single-dose study, we randomized 116 unmedicated MDD patients (mean age 34 years, 78% women) and 116 age-, sex-, and education years-matched healthy controls to four conditions: MR stimulation (fludrocortisone (0.4 mg) + placebo), NMDA-R stimulation (placebo + D-cycloserine (250 mg)), MR and NMDA-R stimulation (both drugs), or placebo. Cognitive and emotional empathy were assessed by the Multifaceted Empathy Test. The study was registered on clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03062150). MR stimulation increased cognitive empathy across groups, whereas NMDA-R stimulation decreased cognitive empathy in MDD patients only. Independent of receptor stimulation, cognitive empathy did not differ between groups. Emotional empathy was not affected by MR or NMDA-R stimulation. However, MDD patients showed decreased emotional empathy compared with controls but, according to exploratory analyses, only for positive emotions. We conclude that MR stimulation has beneficial effects on cognitive empathy in MDD patients and healthy controls, whereas NMDA-R stimulation decreased cognitive empathy in MDD patients. It appears that MR rather than NMDA-R are potential treatment targets to modulate cognitive empathy in MDD. Springer International Publishing 2020-07-28 2020-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7785026/ /pubmed/32722659 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41386-020-0777-x Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Nowacki, Jan Wingenfeld, Katja Kaczmarczyk, Michael Chae, Woo Ri Abu-Tir, Ikram Deuter, Christian Eric Piber, Dominique Hellmann-Regen, Julian Otte, Christian Cognitive and emotional empathy after stimulation of brain mineralocorticoid and NMDA receptors in patients with major depression and healthy controls |
title | Cognitive and emotional empathy after stimulation of brain mineralocorticoid and NMDA receptors in patients with major depression and healthy controls |
title_full | Cognitive and emotional empathy after stimulation of brain mineralocorticoid and NMDA receptors in patients with major depression and healthy controls |
title_fullStr | Cognitive and emotional empathy after stimulation of brain mineralocorticoid and NMDA receptors in patients with major depression and healthy controls |
title_full_unstemmed | Cognitive and emotional empathy after stimulation of brain mineralocorticoid and NMDA receptors in patients with major depression and healthy controls |
title_short | Cognitive and emotional empathy after stimulation of brain mineralocorticoid and NMDA receptors in patients with major depression and healthy controls |
title_sort | cognitive and emotional empathy after stimulation of brain mineralocorticoid and nmda receptors in patients with major depression and healthy controls |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7785026/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32722659 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41386-020-0777-x |
work_keys_str_mv | AT nowackijan cognitiveandemotionalempathyafterstimulationofbrainmineralocorticoidandnmdareceptorsinpatientswithmajordepressionandhealthycontrols AT wingenfeldkatja cognitiveandemotionalempathyafterstimulationofbrainmineralocorticoidandnmdareceptorsinpatientswithmajordepressionandhealthycontrols AT kaczmarczykmichael cognitiveandemotionalempathyafterstimulationofbrainmineralocorticoidandnmdareceptorsinpatientswithmajordepressionandhealthycontrols AT chaewoori cognitiveandemotionalempathyafterstimulationofbrainmineralocorticoidandnmdareceptorsinpatientswithmajordepressionandhealthycontrols AT abutirikram cognitiveandemotionalempathyafterstimulationofbrainmineralocorticoidandnmdareceptorsinpatientswithmajordepressionandhealthycontrols AT deuterchristianeric cognitiveandemotionalempathyafterstimulationofbrainmineralocorticoidandnmdareceptorsinpatientswithmajordepressionandhealthycontrols AT piberdominique cognitiveandemotionalempathyafterstimulationofbrainmineralocorticoidandnmdareceptorsinpatientswithmajordepressionandhealthycontrols AT hellmannregenjulian cognitiveandemotionalempathyafterstimulationofbrainmineralocorticoidandnmdareceptorsinpatientswithmajordepressionandhealthycontrols AT ottechristian cognitiveandemotionalempathyafterstimulationofbrainmineralocorticoidandnmdareceptorsinpatientswithmajordepressionandhealthycontrols |