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Emotional faces and emotion words, horizontally arranged by emotion. For translation of the emotion words, please see text. Reduced size.
Source publication
Starting from the hypothesis that alexithymics show a hyperactive left hemisphere, this study investigated the neural processing of visual information in two alexi-thymic groups and one nonalexithymic group. The subjects performed a lateralised visual-matching task, through which the proportions of ipsilateral and contralateral processing of three...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... The emotional stimuli consisted of line drawings of schematic faces with an emotional expression taken from Paramay, Josephs, Slusarek, and Schneider (1993), who tested these facial expressions for recognisability (see Figure 1). There were five emo- tions and two expressions per emotion, an easy recognisable and a difficult recognisable one. ...
Context 2
... emotion words were used as target stimuli, two synonyms per emotional expression, the Dutch equivalents for: delight±happiness, surprised±amazed, sad±sorrow, rage±anger, calm± quiet. (The original Dutch words are presented in Figure 1, in the above order.) Each of the five emotions could thus also produce four matching face expression/emotion word combinations. ...
Citations
... Hemisphären-Spezialisierung und Alexithymie Die meisten Hypothesen entstehen aus dem zweidimensionalen Konstrukt der Alexithymie nach Vorst und Bermond [31,46], hierbei werden eine mögliche linkshemisphärische Dominanz oder eine rechtshemisphärische Unterfunktion diskutiert [47], bzw. wurde eine Art hemisphärische Präferenz vorgeschlagen [46], analog zur Konnexionismustheorie [48]. ...
Zusammenfassung
Alexithymie ist ein multidimensionales Konstrukt der Persönlichkeit, welches durch ein nach außen hin orientiertes Denken sowie Schwierigkeiten bei der Gefühlsbeschreibung und -identifizierung einer anderen Person gekennzeichnet ist. Obwohl sie bei psychiatrischen Patienten gut beschrieben ist, wurde ihr Vorkommen und die Pathophysiologie im Zusammenhang mit der Multiplen Sklerose (MS) erst neuerdings untersucht. In dieser narrativen Übersichtsarbeit sollen Prävalenzen, Ursachen, neurobiologische und klinische Befunde dargestellt werden. Die Prävalenz der Alexithymie in MS reicht von 10 bis 53%. Es scheint Assoziationen mit Angststörungen, Depressionen, Fatigue und einigen kognitiven Aspekten zu geben. Die Beziehung zu klinischen und klassischen kognitiven Variablen/Kriterien ist bislang wenig untersucht. Schlussendlich stellt eine Arbeit einen pathophysiologischen Bezug dar und diskutiert eine aberrante interhemisphärische Übertragung. Zusammenfassend zeigt die Alexithymie bei MS eine negative Auswirkung auf die Lebensqualität, deshalb stellt das Screening nach ihr einen wichtigen Punkt im Krankheitsmanagement dar. Ihre Beziehung zu klinischen, emotionalen und kognitiven Kofaktoren bedarf weiterer Untersuchungen. Größer angelegte Studien inklusive bildgebender Verfahren sind dringend notwendig, um ein besseres Verständnis für die neuronalen Mechanismen der Alexithymie bei MS zu gewinnen.
... Therefore, the current results regarding decreased task-related FAA differences between Intact and Eyeless conditions in ALEX compared to NonALEX in response to sad faces may reflect reduced withdrawal processing for the eye-region in sadness. As the FAA reflects hemispheric interaction, this may be consistent with the hypoarousal model and the theory of a right hemisphere deficit or a left hemisphere preference in alexithymia (Buchanan et al., 1980;Wehmer et al., 1995;Bermond et al., 2005). A causal role of the FAA in the emotional response has been suggested from a study using neurofeedback training (Allen et al., 2001). ...
Alexithymia is characterized by impairments in emotion processing, frequently linked to facial expressions of emotion. The eye-region conveys information necessary for emotion processing. It has been demonstrated that alexithymia is associated with reduced attention to the eyes, but little is known regarding the cognitive and electrophysiological mechanisms underlying emotive eye-region processing in alexithymia. Here, we recorded behavioral and electrophysiological responses of individuals with alexithymia (ALEX; n = 25) and individuals without alexithymia (NonALEX; n = 23) while they viewed intact and eyeless faces with angry and sad expressions during a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation task. Results showed different eye-region focuses and differentiating N1 responses between intact and eyeless faces to anger and sadness in NonALEX, but not in ALEX, suggesting deficient perceptual processing of the eye-region in alexithymia. Reduced eye-region focus and smaller differences in frontal alpha asymmetry in response to sadness between intact and eyeless faces were observed in ALEX than NonALEX, indicative of impaired affective processing of the eye-region in alexithymia. These findings highlight perceptual and affective abnormalities of emotive eye-region processing in alexithymia. Our results contribute to understanding the neuropsychopathology of alexithymia and alexithymia-related disorders.
... Наличие этой личностной конструкции, как считается, предрасполагает к широкому спектру аффективных и так называемых психосоматических (соматоформных) расстройств [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. В наших более ранних исследованиях [6][7][8] получены некоторые предварительные данные о том, что алекситимия может также участвовать в патогенезе пароксизмального синдрома. ...
... Считается, что для алекситимии как преморбидной констелляции личностных черт существует возможное объяснение с точки зрения нейропсихологических механизмов [3][4][5]9]. С другой стороны, алекситимия, вероятно, связана с нарушением регуляции иммунных функцийповышением уровня некоторых воспалительных цитокинов и снижением функции клеточного иммунитета [10,11]. ...
... Здесь необходимо подчеркнуть, что к настоящему времени предложено несколько Таблица 4. Корреляции между алекситимией и иммунными показателями у больных эпилепсией [5]. Среди предложенных нейропсихологических механизмов патогенеза алекситимии модель редуцированных взаимосвязей между правым и левым полушариями [20][21][22] и модель снижения функционирования правого полушария [4,5,23,25] можно считать отчасти устаревшими. Согласно первой модели, алекситимия является результатом снижения уровня взаимосвязей между правым и левым полушариями и, следовательно, нарушением нормального потока информации. ...
... On the one hand, thalamus and brainstem atrophy could play a role in the emotional dysfunction of alexithymic patients. On the other hand, corpus callosum and cerebral white matter atrophy in alexithymic patients is compatible with the hemispheric specialization of language, as suggest Bermond in 2005 [53]. Cerebellum could have been also impacted by the interruption of dysfunction of long distance white matter fibers and reveled in our study by cerebellum white mater atrophy. ...
Background
Alexithymia, meaning no words for emotions is a common problem that could affect up to 53% of patients in multiple sclerosis (MS).
Objectives
To determine the frequency of alexithymia in MS and investigate MS-related abnormalities in structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and their associations with fatigue and cognitive functions.
Methods
Ninety-five patients at all stages of the disease were examined: 21 with clinically isolated syndromes (CIS), 30 with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), 21 with primary (PP) and 23 with secondary progressive MS (SPMS). Alexithymia was measured with the Toronto alexithymia scale (TAS-20) and correlated to cognitive functions, depression, and fatigue. Voxel-based morphometry MRI was analyzed to determine lesion load, cerebral and regional atrophy.
Results
Fifty-seven of patients had alexithymia with no significant difference between the clinical phenotypes. Alexithymic patients differed from non-alexithymic patients on fatigue, depression and information processing speed. Compared to non-alexithymic patients, alexithymic patients had decreased volumes of cerebral and cerebellar white matter and there was a significant relationship between alexithymia and decreased brainstem, thalamic and corpus callosum volume.
Conclusion
Regardless of the phenotype of MS, alexithymia is associated with atrophy of cerebral and cerebellar white matter, brainstem, corpus callosum, and thalami.
... Most of the available hypotheses arise from the bi-dimensional nature of alexithymia and its theoretical subtypes as initially proposed by the Dutch team (Vorst and Bermond, 2001;Larsen et al., 2003;Bermond et al., 2006). For instance, in one of their works, Bermond and colleagues discussed the possibility of a left hemispheric preference or a right hemispheric negligence in alexithymics during the processing of visual emotional information compared to non-alexithymics who process the stimulus in the hemisphere that receives it (Bermond et al., 2005). In another work (Larsen et al., 2003), they proposed a kind of hemispheric specialization in line with the connexionist theory initially proposed by McClelland and colleagues (McClelland et al., 1987). ...
Background
Alexithymia is a multidimensional personality construct characterized by difficulties identifying and describing one’s feelings, and externally oriented thinking. Although extensively reported in psychiatric patients, little attention has been paid regarding its occurrence and its pathophysiology in the context of multiple sclerosis (MS).
Methods
A research was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines aiming to identify original research articles in English and French languages about alexithymia in MS. Computerized databases (MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus) were consulted. The key terms used were the following: (‘multiple sclerosis’ OR ‘MS’) AND (‘alexithymia’ OR ‘alexithymic’ OR ‘emotion processing’ OR ‘emotion awareness’ OR ‘Toronto Alexithymia Scale’ OR ‘Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire’) AND (‘imaging’ OR ‘neuroimaging’ OR ‘magnetic resonance imaging’ or ‘MRI’). References of the retrieved papers were scanned manually aiming to get additional sources.
Results
14 papers matched the above criteria. The prevalence of alexithymia in MS ranges from 10% to 53%. It seems to be associated with anxiety, depression, fatigue, and some social cognitive aspects. Its relationship with clinical and classical cognitive variables was rarely assessed. Finally, only one study has addressed its pathophysiology and has suggested an aberrant interhemispheric transfer.
Conclusion
Admitting the prevalence of alexithymia in MS and its potential negative impact on the quality of life and interpersonal communication, screening for it is relevant for a better management. Its relationship with clinical, emotional and cognitive confounders merits to be further evaluated. Large-scale studies, employing neuroimaging techniques, are greatly needed in order to disentangle the neural underpinnings of this trait in MS.
... Several brain regions and their associated networks have been implicated in alexithymic behavior suggesting a neurobiological underpinning for the trait. Amongst the cortical structures implicated include dysfunctional interhemispheric processing via the corpus callosum (Bermond et al., 2005), reduced volume and activity within the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) (Frewen et al., 2008; Gündel et al., 2004; Kano et al., 2003; Lane et al., 1997), dysfunctional connectivity of the insular cortex (Bird et al., 2010), and abnormal activity within the amygdala and striatum (Larsen et al., 2003; Moriguchi and Komaki, 2013; Taylor and Bagby, 2004). Evidently , impaired psychosomatic processing attributed to AL can have a negative impact on psychological and immune outcomes in patient and non-patient populations alike (Guilbaud et al., 2003; Lumley et al., 1996; Lumley, 2004; Martin and Pihl, 1985; Taylor et al., 1985, 1997). ...
Psychosocial function and adherence to antiretroviral regimen are key factors in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease management. Alexithymia (AL) is a trait deficit in the ability to identify and describe feelings, emotions and bodily sensations. A structural equation model was used to test whether high levels of AL indirectly relate to greater non-adherent behavior and HIV disease severity via psychosocial dysfunction. Blood draws for HIV-1 viral load and CD4 T-lymphocyte, along with psychosocial surveys were collected from 439 HIV positive adults aged 18-73 years. The structural model supports significant paths from: (1) AL to non-active patient involvement, psychological distress, and lower social support, (2) psychological distress and non-active involvement to non-adherent behavior, and (3) non-adherence to greater HIV disease severity (CFI = .97, RMSEA = .04, SRMR = .05). A second model confirmed the intermediary effect of greater patient assertiveness on the path from AL to social support and non-active patient involvement (CFI = .94, RMSEA = .04, SRMR = .05). Altogether, AL is indirectly linked with HIV disease management through it's association with poor psychosocial function, however greater patient assertiveness buffers the negative impact of AL on relationship quality with healthcare providers and members of one's social support network.
... Several brain regions and their associated networks have been implicated in alexithymic behavior suggesting a neurobiological underpinning for the trait. Amongst the cortical structures implicated include dysfunctional interhemispheric processing via the corpus callosum (Bermond et al., 2005), reduced volume and activity within the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) (Frewen et al., 2008;Gündel et al., 2004;Kano et al., 2003;Lane et al., 1997), dysfunctional connectivity of the insular cortex (Bird et al., 2010), and abnormal activity within the amygdala and striatum (Larsen et al., 2003;Moriguchi and Komaki, 2013;Taylor and Bagby, 2004). Evidently, impaired psychosomatic processing attributed to AL can have a negative impact on psychological and immune outcomes in patient and non-patient populations alike (Guilbaud et al., 2003;Lumley et al., 1996;Lumley, 2004;Martin and Pihl, 1985;Taylor et al., 1985Taylor et al., , 1997. ...
The neuropathological changes which result from infection of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection may manifest in alexithymia (AL), a multidimensional trait characterized by impairments in affective and cognitive emotional processing. A sample of 93 HIV survivors scoring high, i.e., ⩾ 74 on the 26-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-26) were compared to 79 low AL (TAS-26 ⩽ 54) survivors on measures of neurocognitive, psychological, neuroendocrine and immune function. Neurocognitive measures probed visual attention and task switching, levels of HIV Dementia and general cognitive status. Patients were also screened for levels of depression, anxiety and psychological stress. A 24-hr urinary norepinephrine (NE) and cortisol (CORT) collection was taken and blood drawn for T lymphocyte subset counts (CD4+CD3+) and HIV-1 viral load. Alexithymic patients exhibited greater executive dysfunction, psychological distress, norepinephrine-to-cortisol (NE/CORT) ratios and viral load. Linear regression models accounting for sociodemographic and disease-related variables within the entire sample revealed two AL subscales, difficulties identifying and describing feelings, predicted and explained a significant proportion of variance in the outcome measures. Specifically, poorer executive task-switching ability was associated with greater difficulty describing feelings; dysregulated autonomic response (high NE/CORT ratio) and depressive symptoms were predicted by level of difficulty identifying feelings; higher levels of anxiety and psychological stress were predicted by greater difficulty describing and identifying feelings. The psychoneuroimmunological profile of alexithymia in HIV positive persons at mid-stage of infection suggests a greater vulnerability for disease progression.
... Hence, theories on neural correlates of alexithymia mainly focus on brain areas involved in emotion processing. One theory states that alexithymia might be associated with a right hemisphere deficit or a left hemisphere preference (Bermond et al., 2005;Buchanan et al., 1980) because the right hemisphere plays an important role in the perception and regulation of emotional behavior (Adolphs et al., 2000). Lane et al. (1997) hypothesized a central role for the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in alexithymia. ...
... This resulted in the exclusion of 34 data points from 3 younger adults and 10 older adults (range of data points excluded per participant: 1Á6) in the lexical decision task and of 26 data points from 3 younger adults and 8 older adults (range of data points excluded per participant: 1Á8) in the facial decision task. Subsequently we excluded individual data points as done by Bermond, Bleys, and Stoffels (2005). These authors removed reaction time data for each participant that deviated from each participant's personal mean by more than92 SD. ...
The population of industrialised societies has increased tremendously over the last century, raising the question of how an enhanced age affects cognition. The relevance of two models of healthy ageing are contrasted in the present study that both target the functioning of the two cerebral hemispheres. The right hemi-ageing model (RHAM) assumes that functions of the right hemisphere decline before those of the left hemisphere. The Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in Older Adults (HAROLD) model suggests that the contralateral hemisphere supports the normally superior hemisphere in a given task resulting in a reduced hemispheric asymmetry overall. In a mixed design 20 younger and 20 older adults performed both a task assessing a left (lateralised lexical decisions) and a right (sex decisions on chimeric faces) hemisphere advantage. Results indicated that lateralised performance in both tasks was attenuated in older as compared to younger adults, in particular in men. These observations support the HAROLD model. Future studies should investigate whether this reduced functional hemispheric asymmetry in older age results from compensatory processes or from a process of de-differentiation.
... In contrast, high-scorers on alexithymia showed significantly less left bias on chimeric tasks than low-scorers, indirectly suggesting less right-hemispheric involvement [30]. Using a lateralized visual-matching task, Bermond and coworkers [32] demonstrated that high-scorers on alexithymia as compared to low-scorers showed a left hemisphere preference for the processing of emotional words. Finally, a dysfunction of the right hemisphere during emotional processing in alexithymia has been suggested by studies using electroencephalography (EEG) [33,34]. ...
... However, the question of right hemisphere predominance for emotional aspects of speech is still under debate and may constitute a relative rather than an absolute dominance [43,79,80]. In any case, our finding of a left-hemisphere bias during early acoustic processing of emotional prosody in cognitive alexithymia is in line with the hypothesis of a hyperactive left hemisphere during emotional processing in this personality trait [32], and suggests that decreased abilities in identifying and verbalizing one's feelings are linked to a hyper-reliance on the left hemisphere, normally specialized for cognitive analyses rather than emotional processing [81]. ...
... These results confirm previous reports of early perceptual differences in emotional processing as a function of alexithymia [35,38], and extend these findings by suggesting that such early perceptual modulations may be predominantly associated with the cognitive alexithymia dimension, whereas its affective dimension may be related to differences at later stages of emotional appraisal. In addition, our observation of a faster left-hemispheric response and a tendency toward a delayed right-hemispheric response during the early acoustic encoding of unattended emotional speech is in line with the hypotheses of a left hemisphere preference during emotional processing [26,32] and a hypoactive right hemisphere associated with alexithymia [30,82]. However, according to our findings such a left-hemisphere bias and hemispheric dissociation seems predominantly evident in the cognitive dimension of alexithymia. ...
Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties in the cognitive processing of emotions (cognitive dimension) and in the experience of emotions (affective dimension). Previous research focused mainly on visual emotional processing in the cognitive alexithymia dimension. We investigated the impact of both alexithymia dimensions on electrophysiological responses to emotional speech in 60 female subjects.
During unattended processing, subjects watched a movie while an emotional prosody oddball paradigm was presented in the background. During attended processing, subjects detected deviants in emotional prosody. The cognitive alexithymia dimension was associated with a left-hemisphere bias during early stages of unattended emotional speech processing, and with generally reduced amplitudes of the late P3 component during attended processing. In contrast, the affective dimension did not modulate unattended emotional prosody perception, but was associated with reduced P3 amplitudes during attended processing particularly to emotional prosody spoken in high intensity.
Our results provide evidence for a dissociable impact of the two alexithymia dimensions on electrophysiological responses during the attended and unattended processing of emotional prosody. The observed electrophysiological modulations are indicative of a reduced sensitivity to the emotional qualities of speech, which may be a contributing factor to problems in interpersonal communication associated with alexithymia.
