Objectives:

Empathy plays a fundamental role in human social interaction and a better understanding of its neural basis might help to explain some deficits in social functioning in people with schizophrenia. Our purpose was to summarize the neural mechanism of empathy and its dysfunction in patients with schizophrenia by reviewing the functional neuroimaging literature.

Method:

A selective literature review was undertaken.

Results:

The concepts and neural correlates of empathy were summarized according to three main divisions：cognitive empathy (or Theory of Mind), emotional empathy, and motor empathy. A few neuroimaging studies about empathy in schizophrenic patients suggests a possible deficit in the prefrontal cortex during empathy-related tasks.

Conclusion:

Further studies may address to clarify which areas in several components of empathy are specifically impaired in schizophrenia, how an impaired empathy in schizophrenia is associated with other aspects of cognition, and how these impairments affect their social cognition.