Empathy and alexithymia in essential tremor

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology

Background:

• Social cognition is a recognized non-motor aspect of essential tremor (ET).
• Previous research on empathy and alexithymia in ET shows limited and inconsistent findings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess empathy and alexithymia in ET patients compared to healthy controls (HC).
• To investigate associations between empathy, alexithymia, and global cognition in ET.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study involving 40 ET patients and 40 HC.
• Utilized Italian versions of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Empathy Quotient (EQ-short), and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20).

Main Results:

• ET patients scored lower on MoCA than HC (p<0.001).
• No significant group differences were found for empathy (EQ-short) or alexithymia (TAS-20).
• In ET, global cognition (MoCA) was not significantly linked to empathy or alexithymia; adjusted models showed inverse associations between social skills and alexithymia.

Conclusions:

• Findings do not support a group-level deficit in self-reported empathy or alexithymia in ET.
• Socio-emotional functioning seems largely preserved at a group level in ET.
• The relationship between social skills and emotional self-description may be altered in ET.