ArticleNeuron2023
Dorsomedial prefrontal hypoexcitability underlies lost empathy in frontotemporal dementia.
Article in Neuron, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Effect of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex on the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Patients With Cognitive Impairment: A Double-Blinded, Randomized, and Sham Control Trial.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2025Trial
- The Theoretical Evolution of Social Memory and the Core Contribution of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex.Neuroscience bulletin · 2026Review
- A prefrontal cortex-nucleus accumbens circuit attenuates cocaine-conditioned place preference memories.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Major urinary protein 1 modulates neuronal excitability in the medial prefrontal cortex in a male mouse model of affective empathy.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Neuromodulation of excitation-inhibition balance in dementia with lewy bodies: a translational framework.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2026Review
- A causal and dissociable role for the right inferior frontal gyrus in empathy for physical and social pain.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- SGK1 inhibition restores excitability of cortical neurons derived from Alzheimer's disease patients.Neurobiology of disease · 2026Article
- Experience-dependent modulation of prosocial touch in mice.iScience · 2026Article
- Empathy and prosocial behavior powered by orexin-driven theta oscillations.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- Dysfunction of the paraventricular thalamus-prelimbic cortex circuit underlies maternal separation-induced deficits in contagious pain.Science advances · 2025Article
- Prosocial Helping Behavior: Conceptual Issues and Neural Mechanisms.Biological psychiatry · 2025Review
- The Underestimated Role of Iron in Frontotemporal Dementia: A Narrative Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- The effect of psilocybin on empathy and prosocial behavior: a proposed mechanism for enduring antidepressant effects.Npj mental health research · 2024Review
- Article
- Understanding Others' Distress Through Past Experiences: The Role of Memory Engram Cells in Observational Fear.Advances in neurobiology · 2024Review
- Neural mechanisms of comforting: Prosocial touch and stress buffering.Hormones and behavior · 2023Review
- Article
- Lost empathy in FTD linked to prefrontal hypoexcitability.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2023Article
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9 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
Empathic function is essential for the well-being of social species. Empathy loss is associated with various brain disorders and represents arguably the most distressing feature of frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a leading form of presenile dementia. The neural mechanisms are unknown. We established an FTD mouse model deficient in empathy and observed that aged somatic transgenic mice expressing GGGGCC repeat expansions in C9orf72, a common genetic cause of FTD, exhibited blunted affect sharing and failed to console distressed conspecifics by affiliative contact. Distress-induced consoling behavior activated the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), which developed profound pyramidal neuron hypoexcitability in aged mutant mice. Optogenetic dmPFC inhibition attenuated affect sharing and other-directed consolation in wild-type mice, whereas chemogenetically enhancing dmPFC excitability rescued empathy deficits in mutant mice, even at advanced ages when substantial cortical atrophy had occurred. These results establish cortical hypoexcitability as a pathophysiological basis of empathy loss in FTD and suggest a therapeutic strategy.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.