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Abstract
Alexithymia is considered a dimensional personality trait that refers to a cluster
of deficits in the recognition, differentiation, and verbalization of emotions. Research
on the neurobiology of alexithymia has focused hitherto on impairments in the controlled
processing of emotional information. In the present study automatic brain reactivity
to facial emotion was investigated as a function of alexithymia (as assessed by the
20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale - TAS-20). During 3T fMRI scanning, pictures of
sad, happy, and neutral facial expression masked by neutral faces were presented to
33 healthy women. A priori regions of interest in the whole brain analysis were cerebral
structures that are known to be crucially involved in the emotion perception from
the face. Independently from trait anxiety and depression TAS-20 alexithymia was negatively
correlated with activation to masked sad and happy faces in several regions of interest
(in particular, insula, superior temporal gyrus, middle occipital and parahippocampal
gyrus). In addition, the TAS-20 score was negatively correlated with response of the
left amygdala to masked sad faces. A reduced automatic reactivity of the amygdala
and visual occipito-temporal areas could implicate less automated engagement in the
encoding of emotional stimuli in high alexithymia. In addition, a low spontaneous
insular and amygdalar responsivity in high alexithymia individuals could be related
to an attenuation of basic emotional experiences which may contribute to problems
in identifying and differentiating one's feelings.
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