The transcriptomic basis of empathic disequilibrium in autism

Empathy is a basic social ability which allows us to connect with and understand others. It has two components; Cognitive empathy refers to our ability to understand others’ emotions and emotional empathy refers to sharing in the others’ emotions. Previous research in autism, a common neurodevelopmental disorder marked by social deficits, suggested that it is characterized by a specific deficit in cognitive empathy. But not all studies found this effect and, more importantly, many autistics report experiencing higher empathy levels. This led us to examine how emotional and cognitive empathy interact, beyond the levels of each component. In our previous studies we found that emotional empathy which is relatively higher than cognitive empathy (irrespective of the levels of each) predicts autism diagnosis and autistic traits in the typical population. We termed this concept empathic disequilibrium. In the current study we aim to expand our understanding of empathic disequilibrium in autism by examining how gene expression patterns relate to it. This is a novel approach in which we not only search for genes related to a psychological construct, but also use the genetic information to inform our understanding of the psychological concept. This study promises to deliver novel insights into the biology of empathy overall (this was not studied before using gene expression data) and empathic disequilibrium in autism. This understanding can inform more effective interventions for autism. In addition, the methodology proposed in this study can be used to better understand multiple other psychological constructs.