Alterations in Low-Level Perceptual Networks Related to Clinical Severity in PTSD after an Earthquake: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Background

Several task-based functional MRI (fMRI) studies have highlighted abnormal activation in specific regions involving the low-level perceptual (auditory, visual, and somato-motor) network in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients. However, little is known about whether the functional connectivity of the low-level perceptual and higher-order cognitive (attention, central-execution, and default-mode) networks change in medication-naïve PTSD patients during the resting state.

Methods

We investigated the resting state networks (RSNs) using independent component analysis (ICA) in 18 chronic Wenchuan earthquake-related PTSD patients versus 20 healthy survivors (HSs).

Results

Compared to the HSs, PTSD patients displayed both increased and decreased functional connectivity within the salience network (SN), central executive network (CEN), default mode network (DMN), somato-motor network (SMN), auditory network (AN), and visual network (VN). Furthermore, strengthened connectivity involving the inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) and supplementary motor area (SMA) was negatively correlated with clinical severity in PTSD patients.

Limitations

Given the absence of a healthy control group that never experienced the earthquake, our results cannot be used to compare alterations between the PTSD patients, physically healthy trauma survivors, and healthy controls. In addition, the breathing and heart rates were not monitored in our small sample size of subjects. In future studies, specific task paradigms should be used to reveal perceptual impairments.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that PTSD patients have widespread deficits in both the low-level perceptual and higher-order cognitive networks. Decreased connectivity within the low-level perceptual networks was related to clinical symptoms, which may be associated with traumatic reminders causing attentional bias to negative emotion in response to threatening stimuli and resulting in emotional dysregulation.     

Early Affective Processing in Patients with Acute Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Magnetoencephalographic Correlates

Background

In chronic PTSD, a preattentive neural alarm system responds rapidly to emotional information, leading to increased prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation at early processing stages (<100 ms). Enhanced PFC responses are followed by a reduction in occipito-temporal activity during later processing stages. However, it remains unknown if this neuronal pattern is a result of a long lasting mental disorder or if it represents changes in brain function as direct consequences of severe trauma.

Methodology

The present study investigates early fear network activity in acutely traumatized patients with PTSD. It focuses on the question whether dysfunctions previously observed in chronic PTSD patients are already present shortly after trauma exposure. We recorded neuromagnetic activity towards emotional pictures in seven acutely traumatized PTSD patients between one and seven weeks after trauma exposure and compared brain responses to a balanced healthy control sample. Inverse modelling served for mapping sources of differential activation in the brain.

Principal Findings

Compared to the control group, acutely traumatized PTSD patients showed an enhanced PFC response to high-arousing pictures between 60 to 80 ms. This rapid prefrontal hypervigilance towards arousing pictorial stimuli was sustained during 120–300 ms, where it was accompanied by a reduced affective modulation of occipito-temporal neural processing.

Conclusions

Our findings indicate that the hypervigilance-avoidance pattern seen in chronic PTSD is not necessarily a product of an endured mental disorder, but arises as an almost immediate result of severe traumatisation. Thus, traumatic experiences can influence emotion processing strongly, leading to long-lasting changes in trauma network activation and expediting a chronic manifestation of maladaptive cognitive and behavioral symptoms.     

The temporal dynamics of voluntary emotion regulation

Background

Neuroimaging has demonstrated that voluntary emotion regulation is effective in reducing amygdala activation to aversive stimuli during regulation. However, to date little is known about the sustainability of these neural effects once active emotion regulation has been terminated.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We addressed this issue by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in healthy female subjects. We performed an active emotion regulation task using aversive visual scenes (task 1) and a subsequent passive viewing task using the same stimuli (task 2). Here we demonstrate not only a significantly reduced amygdala activation during active regulation but also a sustained regulation effect on the amygdala in the subsequent passive viewing task. This effect was related to an immediate increase of amygdala signal in task 1 once active emotion regulation has been terminated: The larger this peak postregulation signal in the amygdala in task 1, the smaller the sustained regulation effect in task 2.

Conclusions/Significance

In summary, we found clear evidence that effects of voluntary emotion regulation extend beyond the period of active regulation. These findings are of importance for the understanding of emotion regulation in general, for disorders of emotion regulation and for psychotherapeutic interventions.     

Unstable Prefrontal Response to Emotional Conflict and Activation of Lower Limbic Structures and Brainstem in Remitted Panic Disorder

Background

The neural mechanisms of panic disorder (PD) are only incompletely understood. Higher sensitivity of patients to unspecific fear cues and similarities to conditioned fear suggest involvement of lower limbic and brainstem structures. We investigated if emotion perception is altered in remitted PD as a trait feature.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We used blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study neural and behavioural responses of 18 remitted PD patients and 18 healthy subjects to the emotional conflict paradigm that is based on the presentation of emotionally congruent and incongruent face/word pairs. We observed that patients showed stronger behavioural interference and lower adaptation to interference conflict. Overall performance in patients was slower but not less accurate. In the context of preceding congruence, stronger dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activation during conflict detection was found in patients. In the context of preceding incongruence, controls expanded dACC activity and succeeded in reducing behavioural interference. In contrast, patients demonstrated a dropout of dACC and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) recruitment but activation of the lower limbic areas (including right amygdala) and brainstem.

Conclusions/Significance

This study provides evidence that stimulus order in the presentation of emotional stimuli has a markedly larger influence on the brain''s response in remitted PD than in controls, leading to abnormal responses of the dACC/dmPFC and lower limbic structures (including the amygdala) and brainstem. Processing of non-panic related emotional stimuli is disturbed in PD patients despite clinical remission.     

Brain Response to a Humanoid Robot in Areas Implicated in the Perception of Human Emotional Gestures

Background

The humanoid robot WE4-RII was designed to express human emotions in order to improve human-robot interaction. We can read the emotions depicted in its gestures, yet might utilize different neural processes than those used for reading the emotions in human agents.

Methodology

Here, fMRI was used to assess how brain areas activated by the perception of human basic emotions (facial expression of Anger, Joy, Disgust) and silent speech respond to a humanoid robot impersonating the same emotions, while participants were instructed to attend either to the emotion or to the motion depicted.

Principal Findings

Increased responses to robot compared to human stimuli in the occipital and posterior temporal cortices suggest additional visual processing when perceiving a mechanical anthropomorphic agent. In contrast, activity in cortical areas endowed with mirror properties, like left Broca''s area for the perception of speech, and in the processing of emotions like the left anterior insula for the perception of disgust and the orbitofrontal cortex for the perception of anger, is reduced for robot stimuli, suggesting lesser resonance with the mechanical agent. Finally, instructions to explicitly attend to the emotion significantly increased response to robot, but not human facial expressions in the anterior part of the left inferior frontal gyrus, a neural marker of motor resonance.

Conclusions

Motor resonance towards a humanoid robot, but not a human, display of facial emotion is increased when attention is directed towards judging emotions.

Significance

Artificial agents can be used to assess how factors like anthropomorphism affect neural response to the perception of human actions.     

Neural circuitry of emotional and cognitive conflict revealed through facial expressions

Background

Neural systems underlying conflict processing have been well studied in the cognitive realm, but the extent to which these overlap with those underlying emotional conflict processing remains unclear. A novel adaptation of the AX Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT), a stimulus-response incompatibility paradigm, was examined that permits close comparison of emotional and cognitive conflict conditions, through the use of affectively-valenced facial expressions as the response modality.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Brain activity was monitored with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during performance of the emotional AX-CPT. Emotional conflict was manipulated on a trial-by-trial basis, by requiring contextually pre-cued facial expressions to emotional probe stimuli (IAPS images) that were either affectively compatible (low-conflict) or incompatible (high-conflict). The emotion condition was contrasted against a matched cognitive condition that was identical in all respects, except that probe stimuli were emotionally neutral. Components of the brain cognitive control network, including dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), showed conflict-related activation increases in both conditions, but with higher activity during emotion conditions. In contrast, emotion conflict effects were not found in regions associated with affective processing, such as rostral ACC.

Conclusions/Significance

These activation patterns provide evidence for a domain-general neural system that is active for both emotional and cognitive conflict processing. In line with previous behavioural evidence, greatest activity in these brain regions occurred when both emotional and cognitive influences additively combined to produce increased interference.     

Influence of Repressive Coping Style on Cortical Activation during Encoding of Angry Faces

Background

Coping plays an important role for emotion regulation in threatening situations. The model of coping modes designates repression and sensitization as two independent coping styles. Repression consists of strategies that shield the individual from arousal. Sensitization indicates increased analysis of the environment in order to reduce uncertainty. According to the discontinuity hypothesis, repressors are sensitive to threat in the early stages of information processing. While repressors do not exhibit memory disturbances early on, they manifest weak memory for these stimuli later. This study investigates the discontinuity hypothesis using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Methods

Healthy volunteers (20 repressors and 20 sensitizers) were selected from a sample of 150 students on the basis of the Mainz Coping Inventory. During the fMRI experiment, subjects evaluated and memorized emotional and neutral faces. Subjects performed two sessions of face recognition: immediately after the fMRI session and three days later.

Results

Repressors exhibited greater activation of frontal, parietal and temporal areas during encoding of angry faces compared to sensitizers. There were no differences in recognition of facial emotions between groups neither immediately after exposure nor after three days.

Conclusions

The fMRI findings suggest that repressors manifest an enhanced neural processing of directly threatening facial expression which confirms the assumption of hyper-responsivity to threatening information in repression in an early processing stage. A discrepancy was observed between high neural activation in encoding-relevant brain areas in response to angry faces in repressors and no advantage in subsequent memory for these faces compared to sensitizers.     

Effect of emotional arousal on inter-temporal decision-making: an fMRI study

Background

Previous research has shown that emotion can significantly impact decision-making in humans. The current study examined whether or not and how situationally induced emotion influences people to make inter-temporal choices.

Methods

Affective pictures were used as experiment stimuli to provoke emotion, immediately followed by subjects’ performance of a delay-discounting task to measure impulsivity during functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Results

Results demonstrate a subsequent process of increased impulsive decision-making following a prior exposure to both high positive and negative arousal stimuli, compared to the experiment subjects’ experiences with neutral stimuli. Findings indicate that increased impulsive decision-making behaviors can occur with high arousal and can be characterized by decreased activities in the cognitive control regions such as prefronto-parietal regions.

Conclusions

These results suggest that ‘stabilization of high emotional arousal’ may facilitate a reduction of impulsive decision-making and implementation of longer term goals.     

Neuroticism modifies psychophysiological responses to fearful films

Background

Neuroticism is a personality component frequently found in anxious and depressive psychiatric disorders. The influence of neuroticism on negative emotions could be due to its action on stimuli related to fear and sadness, but this remains debated. Our goal was thus to better understand the impact of neuroticism through verbal and physiological assessment in response to stimuli inducing fear and sadness as compared to another negative emotion (disgust).

Methods

Fifteen low neurotic and 18 high neurotic subjects were assessed on an emotional attending task by using film excerpts inducing fear, disgust, and sadness. We recorded skin conductance response (SCR) and corrugator muscle activity (frowning) as indices of emotional expression.

Results

SCR was larger in high neurotic subjects than in low neurotics for fear relative to sadness and disgust. Moreover, corrugator activity and SCR were larger in high than in low neurotic subjects when fear was induced.

Conclusion

After decades of evidence that individuals higher in neuroticism experience more intense emotional reactions to even minor stressors, our results indicate that they show greater SCR and expressive reactivity specifically to stimuli evoking fear rather than to those inducing sadness or disgust. Fear processing seems mainly under the influence of neuroticism. This modulation of autonomic activity by neurotics in response to threat/fear may explain their increased vulnerability to anxious psychopathologies such as PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).     

Emotion-Motion Interactions in Conversion Disorder: An fMRI Study

Objectives

To evaluate the neural correlates of implicit processing of negative emotions in motor conversion disorder (CD) patients.

Methods

An event related fMRI task was completed by 12 motor CD patients and 14 matched healthy controls using standardised stimuli of faces with fearful and sad emotional expressions in comparison to faces with neutral expressions. Temporal changes in the sensitivity to stimuli were also modelled and tested in the two groups.

Results

We found increased amygdala activation to negative emotions in CD compared to healthy controls in region of interest analyses, which persisted over time consistent with previous findings using emotional paradigms. Furthermore during whole brain analyses we found significantly increased activation in CD patients in areas involved in the ‘freeze response’ to fear (periaqueductal grey matter), and areas involved in self-awareness and motor control (cingulate gyrus and supplementary motor area).

Conclusions

In contrast to healthy controls, CD patients exhibited increased response amplitude to fearful stimuli over time, suggesting abnormal emotional regulation (failure of habituation / sensitization). Patients with CD also activated midbrain and frontal structures that could reflect an abnormal behavioral-motor response to negative including threatening stimuli. This suggests a mechanism linking emotions to motor dysfunction in CD.     

Abnormal Neural Responses to Emotional Stimuli but Not Go/NoGo and Stroop Tasks in Adults with a History of Childhood Nocturnal Enuresis

Background

Nocturnal enuresis (NE) is a common disorder in school-aged children. Previous studies have reported that children with NE exhibit structural, functional and neurochemical abnormalities in the brain, suggesting that children with NE may have cognitive problems. Additionally, children with NE have been shown to process emotions differently from control children. In fact, most cases of NE resolve with age. However, adults who had experienced NE during childhood may still have potential cognitive or emotion problems, and this possibility has not been thoroughly investigated.

Methodology/Principal Findings

In this work, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to evaluate brain functional changes in adults with a history of NE. Two groups, consisting of 21 adults with NE and 21 healthy controls, were scanned using fMRI. We did not observe a significant abnormality in activation during the Go/NoGo and Stroop tasks in adults with a history of NE compared with the control group. However, compared to healthy subjects, young adults with a history of NE mainly showed increased activation in the bilateral temporoparietal junctions, bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and bilateral anterior cingulate cortex while looking at negative vs. neutral pictures.

Conclusions/Significance

Our results demonstrate that adults with a history of childhood NE have no obvious deficit in response inhibition or cognitive control but showed abnormal neural responses to emotional stimuli.     

Dissociation of Neural Substrates of Response Inhibition to Negative Information between Implicit and Explicit Facial Go/Nogo Tasks: Evidence from an Electrophysiological Study

Background

Although ample evidence suggests that emotion and response inhibition are interrelated at the behavioral and neural levels, neural substrates of response inhibition to negative facial information remain unclear. Thus we used event-related potential (ERP) methods to explore the effects of explicit and implicit facial expression processing in response inhibition.

Methods

We used implicit (gender categorization) and explicit emotional Go/Nogo tasks (emotion categorization) in which neutral and sad faces were presented. Electrophysiological markers at the scalp and the voxel level were analyzed during the two tasks.

Results

We detected a task, emotion and trial type interaction effect in the Nogo-P3 stage. Larger Nogo-P3 amplitudes during sad conditions versus neutral conditions were detected with explicit tasks. However, the amplitude differences between the two conditions were not significant for implicit tasks. Source analyses on P3 component revealed that right inferior frontal junction (rIFJ) was involved during this stage. The current source density (CSD) of rIFJ was higher with sad conditions compared to neutral conditions for explicit tasks, rather than for implicit tasks.

Conclusions

The findings indicated that response inhibition was modulated by sad facial information at the action inhibition stage when facial expressions were processed explicitly rather than implicitly. The rIFJ may be a key brain region in emotion regulation.     

The Effects of Overfeeding on the Neuronal Response to Visual Food Cues in Thin and Reduced-Obese Individuals

Background

The regulation of energy intake is a complex process involving the integration of homeostatic signals and both internal and external sensory inputs. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of short-term overfeeding on the neuronal response to food-related visual stimuli in individuals prone and resistant to weight gain.

Methodology/Principal Findings

22 thin and 19 reduced-obese (RO) individuals were studied. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed in the fasted state after two days of eucaloric energy intake and after two days of 30% overfeeding in a counterbalanced design. fMRI was performed while subjects viewed images of foods of high hedonic value and neutral non-food objects. In the eucaloric state, food as compared to non-food images elicited significantly greater activation of insula and inferior visual cortex in thin as compared to RO individuals. Two days of overfeeding led to significant attenuation of not only insula and visual cortex responses but also of hypothalamus response in thin as compared to RO individuals.

Conclusions/Significance

These findings emphasize the important role of food-related visual cues in ingestive behavior and suggest that there are important phenotypic differences in the interactions between external visual sensory inputs, energy balance status, and brain regions involved in the regulation of energy intake. Furthermore, alterations in the neuronal response to food cues may relate to the propensity to gain weight.     

Attentional Bias for Emotional Information in Older Adults: The Role of Emotion and Future Time Perspective

Objectives

Research suggests that older adults display a positivity bias at the level of information processing. However, because studies investigating attentional bias for emotional information in older adults have produced mixed findings, research identifying inter-individual differences that may explain these inconsistent results is necessary. Therefore, we investigated whether mood, symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety and future time perspective are related to attentional bias in older adults.

Method

Thirty-seven healthy older adults and 25 healthy middle-aged adults completed questionnaires to assess mood, symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety and future time perspective. Attentional bias towards happy, sad and neutral information was measured using a modified exogenous cueing paradigm with long cue presentations, to measure maintained attention versus avoidance of emotional stimuli.

Results

Older adults showed attentional avoidance for all emotional faces, whereas no attentional biases were found in the middle-aged group. Moreover, in the older adult group, avoidance for negative information was related to anxiety. Future time perspective was unrelated to attentional bias.

Discussion

These findings suggest that anxiety may lead to inter-individual differences in attentional bias in older adults, and that avoidance from negative information may be an emotion regulation strategy.     

Individualized and clinically derived stimuli activate limbic structures in depression: an fMRI study

Objectives

In the search for neurobiological correlates of depression, a major finding is hyperactivity in limbic-paralimbic regions. However, results so far have been inconsistent, and the stimuli used are often unspecific to depression. This study explored hemodynamic responses of the brain in patients with depression while processing individualized and clinically derived stimuli.

Methods

Eighteen unmedicated patients with recurrent major depressive disorder and 17 never-depressed control subjects took part in standardized clinical interviews from which individualized formulations of core interpersonal dysfunction were derived. In the patient group such formulations reflected core themes relating to the onset and maintenance of depression. In controls, formulations reflected a major source of distress. This material was thereafter presented to subjects during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) assessment.

Results

Increased hemodynamic responses in the anterior cingulate cortex, medial frontal gyrus, fusiform gyrus and occipital lobe were observed in both patients and controls when viewing individualized stimuli. Relative to control subjects, patients with depression showed increased hemodynamic responses in limbic-paralimbic and subcortical regions (e.g. amygdala and basal ganglia) but no signal decrease in prefrontal regions.

Conclusions

This study provides the first evidence that individualized stimuli derived from standardized clinical interviewing can lead to hemodynamic responses in regions associated with self-referential and emotional processing in both groups and limbic-paralimbic and subcortical structures in individuals with depression. Although the regions with increased responses in patients have been previously reported, this study enhances the ecological value of fMRI findings by applying stimuli that are of personal relevance to each individual''s depression.     

Women with a History of Childhood Maltreatment Exhibit more Activation in Association Areas Following Non-Traumatic Olfactory Stimuli: A fMRI Study

Background

The aim of this study was investigating how women with a history of childhood maltreatment (CM) process non-threatening and non-trauma related olfactory stimuli. The focus on olfactory perception is based on the overlap of brain areas often proposed to be affected in CM patients and the projection areas of the olfactory system, including the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, insula and hippocampus.

Methods

Twelve women with CM and 10 controls participated in the study. All participants were, or have been, patients in a psychosomatic clinic. Participants underwent a fMRI investigation during olfactory stimulation with a neutral (coffee) and a pleasant (peach) odor. Furthermore, odor threshold and odor identification (Sniffin'' Sticks) were tested.

Principal Findings

Both groups showed normal activation in the olfactory projection areas. However, in the CM-group we found additionally enhanced activation in multiple, mainly neocortical, areas that are part of those involved in associative networks. These include the precentral frontal lobe, inferior and middle frontal structures, posterior parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and the posterior cingulate cortex.

Conclusions

The results indicate that in this group of patients, CM was associated with an altered processing of olfactory stimuli, but not development of a functional olfactory deficit. This complements other studies on CM insofar as we found the observed pattern of enhanced activation in associative and emotional regions even following non-traumatic olfactory cues.     

The role of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in the regulation of craving by reappraisal in smokers

Rationale and Objective

Drug cues can induce craving for drugs of abuse. Dysfunctional regulation of emotion and motivation regarding rewarding objects appears to be an integral part of addiction. It has been found that cognitive strategies decreased the intensity of craving in addicts. Reappraisal strategy is a type of cognitive strategy that requires participants to reinterpret the meaning of an emotional situation. In addition, studies have found that activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) is associated with the selection and application of cognitive reappraisal. In present study, we sought to determine whether such cognitive regulation engages the dACC and improves inhibition of craving in smokers.

Methods

Sixteen smokers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during performance of a cigarette reward-conditioning procedure with cognitive reappraisal. We focused our analyses on the dACC as a key structure of cognitive control of craving. Cue induced craving under different conditions was obtained. Correlational analysis between the functional response in the dACC and the subjective craving was performed.

Results

We found that using a cognitive reappraisal was successful in decreasing the conditioned craving. Right dACC (BA 24/32) engaged in the cognitive reappraisal. In addition, the individual’s subjective craving was negatively correlated with the right dACC activation.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that the dACC are important substrates of Inhibition of cue induced craving in smokers. Cognitive regulation by cognitive reappraisal may help addicted individuals avoid the anticipated situations where they are exposed to conditioned cues.     

The Extended Functional Neuroanatomy of Emotional Processing Biases for Masked Faces in Major Depressive Disorder

Background

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with a mood-congruent processing bias in the amygdala toward face stimuli portraying sad expressions that is evident even when such stimuli are presented below the level of conscious awareness. The extended functional anatomical network that maintains this response bias has not been established, however.

Aims

To identify neural network differences in the hemodynamic response to implicitly presented facial expressions between depressed and healthy control participants.

Method

Unmedicated-depressed participants with MDD (n = 22) and healthy controls (HC; n = 25) underwent functional MRI as they viewed face stimuli showing sad, happy or neutral face expressions, presented using a backward masking design. The blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal was measured to identify regions where the hemodynamic response to the emotionally valenced stimuli differed between groups.

Results

The MDD subjects showed greater BOLD responses than the controls to masked-sad versus masked-happy faces in the hippocampus, amygdala and anterior inferotemporal cortex. While viewing both masked-sad and masked-happy faces relative to masked-neutral faces, the depressed subjects showed greater hemodynamic responses than the controls in a network that included the medial and orbital prefrontal cortices and anterior temporal cortex.

Conclusions

Depressed and healthy participants showed distinct hemodynamic responses to masked-sad and masked-happy faces in neural circuits known to support the processing of emotionally valenced stimuli and to integrate the sensory and visceromotor aspects of emotional behavior. Altered function within these networks in MDD may establish and maintain illness-associated differences in the salience of sensory/social stimuli, such that attention is biased toward negative and away from positive stimuli.     

Dealing with Feelings: Characterization of Trait Alexithymia on Emotion Regulation Strategies and Cognitive-Emotional Processing

Background

Alexithymia, or “no words for feelings”, is a personality trait which is associated with difficulties in emotion recognition and regulation. It is unknown whether this deficit is due primarily to regulation, perception, or mentalizing of emotions. In order to shed light on the core deficit, we tested our subjects on a wide range of emotional tasks. We expected the high alexithymics to underperform on all tasks.

Method

Two groups of healthy individuals, high and low scoring on the cognitive component of the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire, completed questionnaires of emotion regulation and performed several emotion processing tasks including a micro expression recognition task, recognition of emotional prosody and semantics in spoken sentences, an emotional and identity learning task and a conflicting beliefs and emotions task (emotional mentalizing).

Results

The two groups differed on the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire and Empathy Quotient. Specifically, the Emotion Regulation Quotient showed that alexithymic individuals used more suppressive and less reappraisal strategies. On the behavioral tasks, as expected, alexithymics performed worse on recognition of micro expressions and emotional mentalizing. Surprisingly, groups did not differ on tasks of emotional semantics and prosody and associative emotional-learning.

Conclusion

Individuals scoring high on the cognitive component of alexithymia are more prone to suppressive emotion regulation strategies rather than reappraisal strategies. Regarding emotional information processing, alexithymia is associated with reduced performance on measures of early processing as well as higher order mentalizing. However, difficulties in the processing of emotional language were not a core deficit in our alexithymic group.     

Hypersensitivity in Borderline Personality Disorder during Mindreading

Background

One of the core symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is the instability in interpersonal relationships. This might be related to existent differences in mindreading between BPD patients and healthy individuals.

Methods

We examined the behavioural and neurophysiological (fMRI) responses of BPD patients and healthy controls (HC) during performance of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ test (RMET).

Results

Mental state discrimination was significantly better and faster for affective eye gazes in BPD patients than in HC. At the neurophysiological level, this was manifested in a stronger activation of the amygdala and greater activity of the medial frontal gyrus, the left temporal pole and the middle temporal gyrus during affective eye gazes. In contrast, HC subjects showed a greater activation in the insula and the superior temporal gyri.

Conclusion

These findings indicate that BPD patients are highly vigilant to social stimuli, maybe because they resonate intuitively with mental states of others.