2009/01/01 by Simone Shamay‐Tsoory, Hagai Harari, Ohad Szepsenwol +1 · 1 citation
Psychology · Medicine · #Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior #Bipolar Disorder and Treatment #Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development #Neurocognitive #Empathy #Psychology #Bipolar disorder #Neuropsychology #Cognition #Cognitive flexibility #Executive functions #Cognitive psychology #Clinical psychology #Psychiatry
paper · doi:10.1176/jnp.2009.21.1.59
openalex publication_date 2009/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
The empathic abilities have never been examined in bipolar disorder patients, despite frequent observations of impaired social behavior. To examine the neuropsychological processes that underlie the affective and cognitive empathic ability in bipolar disorder, the authors compared affective and cognitive empathic abilities, as well as theory of mind and executive functions, of euthymic bipolar disorder patients and healthy comparison subjects. Significant deficits in cognitive empathy and theory of mind were observed, while affective empathy was elevated in bipolar disorder. Patients showed impaired cognitive flexibility (shifting and reversal learning) but intact planning behavior. Impaired cognitive empathy was related with performance in neurocognitive tasks of cognitive flexibility, suggesting that prefrontal cortical dysfunction may account for impaired cognitive empathy in bipolar disorder.