Emotional and cognitive empathy in patients with non-epileptic seizures

Evidence suggests that impairments in social cognition are associated with the occurrence of NES. Our aim was to investigate impairments in social cognition in the form of emotional and cognitive empathy in patients with NES compared to healthy controls.

For this purpose, we recruited 41 patients with video-EEG secured NES and compared them to 41 healthy controls matched by age, gender and educational level. Emotional and cognitive empathy were assessed using the Multifaceted Empathy Task (MET) and the Read the Mind in the Eye Test (RMET). Self-assessment questionnaires were used to record psychopathology in both groups.

Patients with NES showed no differences in cognitive empathy compared to the healthy controls. Additionall, they seem to have less emotional empathy specifically towards positive emotions, compared to healthy controls.

Our results are an indication of possible emotional empathy abnormalities in patients with NES. Those deviations, if replicated in large sample sizes, could implicate, that interventions for patients with NES should focus on improving empathy skills.