Antidepressants can reduce the empathic empathy

Antidepressant treatment, not only depression per se, can lead to reductions in behavioral and neural responses to pain empathy. Depression is a disorder that often comes along with strong impairments of social functioning. Until recently, researchers assumed that acute episodes of depression also impair empathy, an essential skill for successful social interactions and understanding others. However, previous research had been mostly carried out in groups of patients who were on antidepressant medication. Novel insights of an interdisciplinary collaboration involving social neuroscientists, neuroimaging experts, and psychiatrists from the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna show that antidepressant treatment can lead to impaired empathy regarding perception of pain, and not just the state of depression itself. The results of this study have been published in the scientific journal Translational Psychiatry. An interdisciplinary research team jointly led by Prof. Claus Lamm (Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, University of Vienna), Prof. Rupert Lanzenberger (Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical University of Vienna) and Prof. Christian Windischberger (Center for Medical Physics and Bioengineering, Medical University of Vienna) set out to disentangle effects of acute depressive episodes and antidepressant treatment on empathy.