Social-specific impairment of negative emotion perception in alexithymia

Alexithymia has been characterized as an impaired ability of emotion processing and regulation. The definition of alexithymia does not include a social component. However, there is some evidence that social cognition may be compromised in individuals with alexithymia. Hence, emotional impairments associated with alexithymia may extend to socially relevant information. Here, we recorded electrophysiological responses of individuals meeting the clinically relevant cutoff for alexithymia (ALEX; n = 24) and individuals without alexithymia (NonALEX; n = 23) while they viewed affective scenes that varied on the dimensions of sociality and emotional valence during a rapid serial visual presentation task. We found that ALEX exhibited lower accuracy and larger N2 than NonALEX in the perception of social negative scenes. Source reconstruction revealed that the group difference in N2 was localized at the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Irrespective of emotional valence, ALEX showed stronger alpha power than NonALEX in social but not non-social conditions. Our findings support the hypothesis of social processing being selectively affected by alexithymia, especially for stimuli with negative valence. Electrophysiological evidence suggests altered deployment of attentional resources in the perception of social-specific emotional information in alexithymia. This work sheds light on the neuropsychopathology of alexithymia and alexithymia-related disorders.     

Neural correlates of incidental and directed facial emotion processing in adolescents and adults

Our knowledge on the development of the affective and cognitive circuitries that underlie affect regulation is still limited. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study examined whether there is more efficient prefrontal modulation of affective circuits with development. Ten adolescents (mean age 14 ± 2 years) and 10 adults (mean age 30 ± 6 years) underwent two scanning conditions that required different levels of cognitive control over face emotion processing. A ‘directed’ emotion processing condition required judgment of facial expressions. An ‘incidental’ emotion processing condition required an age judgment. For the incidental emotion processing condition, adolescents, compared with adults, showed less activation in right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and greater activation in paralimbic regions, suggesting greater emotional reactivity and immature prefrontal circuitries for affect regulation. For the directed emotion processing condition, adolescents, compared with adults, showed decreased recruitment of both the dorsal and pregenual right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), suggesting immature modulatory functions of the ACC during directed face emotion processing. These results indicate that the neural circuitries for affect regulation are still developing in adolescence and have not yet reached the adult level.     

Serotonin transporter genotype modulates cognitive reappraisal of negative emotions: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study

A functional polymorphism within the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) has been reported to modulate emotionality and risk for affective disorders. The short (S) allele has less functional efficacy than the long (L) allele and has been associated with enhanced emotional reactivity. One possible contributing factor to the high emotionality in S carriers may be inefficient use of cognitive strategies such as reappraisal to regulate emotional responses. The aim of the present study was to test whether the 5-HTTLPR genotype modulates the neural correlates of emotion regulation. To determine neural differences between S and L allele carriers during reappraisal of negative emotions, 15 homozygous S (S′/S′) and 15 homozygous L (L′/L′) carriers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), while performing an instructed emotion regulation task including downregulation, upregulation and passive viewing of negative emotional pictures. Compared to L′/L′ allele carriers, subjects who carry the S′/S′ allele responded with lower posterior insula and prefrontal brain activation during passive perception of negative emotional information but showed greater prefrontal activation and anterior insula activation during down- and upregulation of negative emotional responses. The current results support and extend previous findings of enhanced emotionality in S carriers by providing additional evidence of 5-HTTLPR modulation of volitional emotion regulation.     

Effect of impaired recognition and expression of emotions on frontocingulate cortices: an fMRI study of men with alexithymia

OBJECTIVE: Although the brain areas involved in emotional response and in the recognition of others' emotions have been reported, the neural bases of individual differences in affective style remain to be elucidated. Alexithymia, i.e., impairment of the ability to identify and communicate one's emotional state, influences how emotions are regulated. Alexithymia has been hypothesized to involve anterior cingulate dysfunction. Therefore, the authors searched for differential cerebral regional activation in response to emotional stimuli in subjects with alexithymia. METHOD: Two groups of eight men each were selected from 437 healthy subjects on the basis of high or low scores on the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the authors compared the two groups for their regional cerebral activation in response to the presentation of pictures with validated positive or negative arousal capabilities. RESULTS: Men with alexithymia demonstrated less cerebral activation in the left mediofrontal-paracingulate cortex in response to highly negative stimuli and more activation in the anterior cingulate, mediofrontal cortex, and middle frontal gyrus in response to highly positive stimuli than men without alexithymia. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide direct evidence that alexithymia, a personality trait playing a role in affect regulation, is linked with differences in anterior cingulate and mediofrontal activity during emotional stimuli processing.     

Neural correlates of alexithymia: A meta-analysis of emotion processing studies

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties in the experience and cognitive processing of emotions. It is considered a risk factor for a range of psychiatric and neurological disorders. Functional neuroimaging studies investigating the neural correlates of alexithymia have reported inconsistent results. To integrate previous findings, we conducted a parametric coordinate-based meta-analysis including fifteen neuroimaging studies on emotion processing in alexithymia. During the processing of negative emotional stimuli, alexithymia was associated with a diminished response of the amygdala, suggesting decreased attention to such stimuli. Negative stimuli additionally elicited decreased activation in supplementary motor and premotor brain areas and in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, possibly underlying poor empathic abilities and difficulties in emotion regulation associated with alexithymia. Positive stimuli elicited decreased activation in the right insula and precuneus, suggesting reduced emotional awareness in alexithymia regarding positive affect. Independent of valence, higher (presumably compensatory) activation was found in the dorsal anterior cingulate possibly indicating increased cognitive demand. These results suggest valence-specific as well as valence-independent effects of alexithymia on the neural processing of emotions.     

Recent developments in alexithymia theory and research.

OBJECTIVE: To review recent developments in alexithymia theory and research that are relevant to the field of psychosomatic medicine. METHOD: Articles were selected from the alexithymia literature published over the past decade that describe advances in the theoretical understanding of alexithymia or report empirical investigations of the relationships of the construct with emotion regulation and with somatic illness and disease. Empirical investigations of the neural correlates of alexithymia were reviewed also, as were studies that explore therapeutic attempts to modify alexithymic characteristics. RESULTS: The salient features of the alexithymia construct are now thought to reflect deficits in the cognitive processing and regulation of emotions. This is supported by studies showing that alexithymia is associated with maladaptive styles of emotion regulation, low emotional intelligence, a bidirectional interhemispheric transfer deficit, and reduced rapid eye movement (REM) density (number of eye movements divided by number of REM periods). Although empirical evidence demonstrates that alexithymia is associated with several somatic disorders, more prospective studies are required to establish the direction of causality. Preliminary data suggest that psychotherapies involving specific techniques to enhance emotional awareness and integrate symbolic and subsymbolic elements of emotion schemas may be effective in reducing alexithymic characteristics. CONCLUSION: Alexithymia is proving to be a heuristically useful construct for exploring the role of personality and emotions in the pathogenesis of certain somatic illnesses and diseases.     

Individual differences in alexithymia and brain response to masked emotion faces

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 3 T 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.     

抑郁症患者的述情障碍特征及情绪调节研究

背景:抑郁症患者表现出明显的述情障碍,而关于其述情障碍的机制尚未明确,也较少有关于抑郁症患者情绪调节能力的研究.目的:探索抑郁症患者的述情障碍特征,以及抑郁症状、述情障碍与个体情绪调节能力的关系.方法:采用汉密尔顿抑郁量表(HAMD-24)、汉密尔顿焦虑量表(HAMA)、多伦多述情障碍量表(TAS)和计算机情绪调节实验,对36名抑郁症患者和31名健康志愿者进行评定分析.结果:病例组中述情障碍发生率为66.67%,对照组为3.23%,两组比例差异有显著性(χ2=28.661,p<0.001).病例组的TAS得分显著高于对照组(t=7.378,p<0.001).情绪调节实验中,病例组观看中性图片的评分显著高于对照组(t=2.080,p=0.043);而负性-观看、负性-重评和负性-抑制三种实验条件下,两组评分无显著差异.在病例组中,HAMD-24、HAMA与TAS得分之间存在显著相关,而情绪调节实验得分与HAMD-24、HAMA、TAS之间均未发现相关.结论:抑郁症患者中述情障碍的发生率可能高于一般人群,其抑郁症状与述情障碍之间可能存在相互影响.情绪调节能力可能是一种独立的特质,与抑郁状态无关.     

Neurocognitive correlates of alexithymia in asymptomatic individuals with HIV

Alexithymia, an impairment of affective and cognitive emotional processing, is often associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and may reflect effects of the virus on brain areas that are also important for multiple cognitive functions, such as the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices. We hypothesized that there would be a correlation between extent of alexithymia and cognitive performance associated with these brain areas, including attention, executive function, and visuospatial processing. Thirty-four asymptomatic HIV+ participants and 34 matched healthy HIV− volunteers were administered the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, a series of neuropsychological tests, and measures of apathy, depression, and quality of life (QoL). The HIV+ participants had significantly higher levels of alexithymia, depression and apathy than the HIV− group. The extent of alexithymia and two of its processing components (Difficulty Describing Feelings [DDF] and Externally Oriented Thinking), but not depression, correlated with performance on measures of executive and visuospatial abilities, consistent with dysfunction of the frontostriatal circuits and their cortical projections. Apathy was related to alexithymia and two processing components (Difficulty Identifying Feelings and DDF) but to only one cognitive measure. The higher rate of alexithymia, as well as cognitive dysfunction, in HIV may be a consequence of the infection on the frontostriatal system and its cortical connections. Our findings also demonstrated a dissociation of apathy and alexithymia in HIV, pointing to overlapping but distinct neural substrates within frontostriatal circuits. Alexithymia correlated strongly with QoL ratings, underscoring the importance of assessment and treatment of HIV-associated emotional and cognitive processing deficits.     

Cognitive modulation of emotion anticipation

Anticipating salient emotions is a vital function related to attention, self control and other cognitive mechanisms. Expecting affective events can trigger regulatory processes that prepare an organism, for example, to cope with possible threat. However, there are situations, like waiting at the dentist's or preparing for a public appearance, in which down-regulation of especially negative emotions linked with the upcoming event is necessary or favorable. A strategy to achieve this is cognitive distraction, a process with up to now barely known neural mechanisms. We used graded cognitive distraction during the anticipation of subsequent negative emotions in order to induce down-regulation of the emotional response in an event-related fMRI design. Accordingly, we found down-regulation of anterior rostral medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala activation during anticipatory cognitive distraction with the anterior medial prefrontal cortex being negatively correlated with the lateral prefrontal cortex. Furthermore, we demonstrated that anticipatory distraction does not influence subsequent emotion processing, i.e. does not reduce subsequent activation in emotion-processing brain areas. We conclude that effortful anticipatory cognitive distraction effectively down-regulates emotion processing during anticipation but not subsequent emotion information processing. These results help in the understanding of general mechanisms of emotion regulation and have implications for applied fields like cognitive behavioral therapy.     

Visual event-related potentials in subjects with alexithymia: modified processing of emotional aversive information?

OBJECTIVE: A modified autonomous response (e.g., electrodermal activity) in subjects with alexithymia (a reduced ability to identify and communicate emotions) while processing emotional information is well known. However, the functional and neurobiological bases of this impairment are unclear. Do subjects with alexithymia suffer from a primary lack of perception ("emotional blindness"), or is alexithymia based on incomplete information processing due to immature undifferentiated cognitive schemes? The study investigates if subjects with alexithymia show a modified central response as a correlate of classifying emotional aversive stimuli. METHOD: Twenty subjects with high alexithymia and 20 with low alexithymia (selected by the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale) were investigated within a modified odd-ball paradigm. Three different stimulus categories were presented: aversive (probes) and affective neutral pictures (nontargets and instructed targets). Visual event-related EEG potentials and subjective data were recorded. RESULTS: All subjects showed elevated positive amplitudes or mean activity after probe presentation in the latency range: 150-260, 280-450, and 600-1500 msec. Subjects with alexithymia displayed increased positive components (especially P2) of visual event-related potentials after probe presentation than subjects without alexithymia. Subjects without alexithymia more frequently verbalized the emotional impact of these aversive pictures than subjects with alexithymia. CONCLUSIONS: These findings do not support the assumption of a primary lack of perception in alexithymia. Subjects with alexithymia show central correlates of perception and classification of aversive pictures. They may need more effort and cognitive recourses to process emotional information. Nevertheless, spontaneous verbal reference to emotional stimulus aspects is reduced.     

Differential effects of early life stress on hippocampus and amygdala volume as a function of emotional abilities

Early life stress (ELS) is known to have considerable influence on brain development and affective functioning. Previous studies in clinical populations have shown that hippocampus and amygdala, two central structures of limbic emotion processing circuits, are predominantly affected by early stress exposure. Given the inconsistent findings on ELS‐related effects in healthy populations and the associations of ELS and affective functioning, the question arises which additional emotion‐relevant variables need to be considered to better understand the effects of ELS. We, therefore, investigated the volume of hippocampus and amygdala in 25 high alexithymic (h‐ALEX) and 25 low alexithymic (l‐ALEX) individuals, which were matched with regard to ELS, but significantly differed in their degree of emotional functioning. Volumetric analyses were performed using FSL‐FIRST, a method to automatically segment subcortical structures on T1‐weighted magnetic resonance images. Alexithymia was assessed using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale and Bermond–Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire. ELS was assessed by Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and Early Trauma Inventory. Our data showed that ELS was negatively associated with right hippocampus volume in h‐ALEX individuals, while there was no such association in the l‐ALEX group. Furthermore, ELS was positively associated with left amygdala volume in l‐ALEX individuals, but not in individuals with high levels of alexithymia. The present study emphasizes a substantial relationship between intrapersonal factors, such as alexithymia and neural alterations related to the experience of ELS. Longitudinal study designs are necessary to pursue the question of how emotional abilities interact with individual adaptations to early stress exposure on the neural level. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Neural correlates of ‘distracting’ from emotion during autobiographical recollection

Remembering emotional autobiographical memories (AMs) is important for emotional well-being, and investigation of the role of emotion regulation (ER) during AM recollection has relevance for understanding mental health issues. Although significant progress has been made in understanding the brain mechanisms underlying ER and AM, less is known about the role of ER during AM recollection. The present study investigated how focusing away (or ‘distracting’) from the emotional content during AM recollection influences the subjective re-experiencing of emotions and the associated neural correlates, by manipulating the retrieval focus of participants who remembered emotional AMs while fMRI data were recorded. First, focusing away from emotion led to decreased self-reported emotional responses, along with increased engagement of ER-related regions (ventro-medial prefrontal cortex, vmPFC), and reduced activity in emotion-related regions (amygdala, AMY). Second, increased vmPFC activity was linked to reduced emotional ratings, during the non-emotional focus. Third, mediation analysis identified vmPFC as a functional hub integrating affective signals from AMY and mediating their impact on the subjective re-experiencing of emotion, according to the current retrieval focus. Collectively, these findings shed light on the neural mechanisms underlying the ability to effectively switch attentional focus away from emotions during AM recollections and have direct relevance for understanding, preventing and treating affective disorders, characterised by reduced ability to regulate emotions.     

Hyperactivation balances sensory processing deficits during mood induction in schizophrenia

While impairments in emotion recognition are consistently reported in schizophrenia, there is some debate on the experience of emotion. Only few studies investigated neural correlates of emotional experience in schizophrenia. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study compared a standard visual mood induction paradigm with an audiovisual method aimed at eliciting emotions more automatically. To investigate the interplay of sensory, cognitive and emotional mechanisms during emotion experience, we examined connectivity patterns between brain areas. Sixteen schizophrenia patients and sixteen healthy subjects participated in two different mood inductions (visual and audiovisual) that were administered for different emotions (happiness, sadness and neutral). Confirming the dissociation of behavioral and neural correlates of emotion experience, patients rated their mood similarly to healthy subjects but showed differences in neural activations. Sensory brain areas were activated less, increased activity emerged in higher cortical areas, particularly during audiovisual stimulation. Connectivity was increased between primary and secondary sensory processing areas in schizophrenia. These findings support the hypothesis of a deficit in filtering and processing sensory information alongside increased higher-order cognitive effort compensating for perception deficits in the affective domain. This may suffice to recover emotion experience in ratings of clinically stable patients but may fail during acute psychosis.     

Neuropsychological correlates of organic alexithymia.

Deficits in emotional recognition and perception following traumatic brain injury (TBI) have been associated with alexithymia (Henry et al., 2006; Williams et al., 2001). This study examined the prevalence of alexithymia in a TBI population, and its relationship to injury severity, neuropsychological ability and affective disorder. A total of 121 patients completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20), a measure that addresses 3 distinct characteristics of the alexithymia concept; difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking. Patients also completed a neuropsychological assessment and measures of depression and anxiety. Results confirm a high prevalence of alexithymia after TBI, relative to the general population and an orthopedic control group. There was no relationship between injury severity and the presence of alexithymia. A negative relationship was found between alexithymia and verbal and sequencing abilities, but there was no relationship with executive dysfunction or any other cognitive domain. Moderate correlations were obtained between alexithymia and affective disorder; regression analyses indicated that alexithymia, depression, and anxiety should be considered distinct, but overlapping constructs. The results of this study suggest that increased neuropsychological attention should be directed towards emotional change after head injury and its relationship with cognition and psychosocial outcome.     

Facial emotion recognition and alexithymia in adults with somatoform disorders

The primary aim of this study was to investigate facial emotion recognition (FER) in patients with somatoform disorders (SFD). Also of interest was the extent to which concurrent alexithymia contributed to any changes in emotion recognition accuracy. Twenty patients with SFD and 20 healthy, age, sex and education matched, controls were assessed with the Facially Expressed Emotion Labelling Test of FER and the 26-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Patients with SFD exhibited elevated alexithymia symptoms relative to healthy controls. Patients with SFD also recognized significantly fewer emotional expressions than did the healthy controls. However, the group difference in emotion recognition accuracy became nonsignificant once the influence of alexithymia was controlled for statistics. This suggests that the deficit in FER observed in the patients with SFD was most likely a consequence of concurrent alexithymia. It should be noted that neither depression nor anxiety was significantly related to emotion recognition accuracy, suggesting that these variables did not contribute the emotion recognition deficit. Impaired FER observed in the patients with SFD could plausibly have a negative influence on these individuals' social functioning.     

Blunted feelings: Alexithymia is associated with a diminished neural response to speech prosody

How we perceive emotional signals from our environment depends on our personality. Alexithymia, a personality trait characterized by difficulties in emotion regulation has been linked to aberrant brain activity for visual emotional processing. Whether alexithymia also affects the brain’s perception of emotional speech prosody is currently unknown. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the impact of alexithymia on hemodynamic activity of three a priori regions of the prosody network: the superior temporal gyrus (STG), the inferior frontal gyrus and the amygdala. Twenty-two subjects performed an explicit task (emotional prosody categorization) and an implicit task (metrical stress evaluation) on the same prosodic stimuli. Irrespective of task, alexithymia was associated with a blunted response of the right STG and the bilateral amygdalae to angry, surprised and neutral prosody. Individuals with difficulty describing feelings deactivated the left STG and the bilateral amygdalae to a lesser extent in response to angry compared with neutral prosody, suggesting that they perceived angry prosody as relatively more salient than neutral prosody. In conclusion, alexithymia may be associated with a generally blunted neural response to speech prosody. Such restricted prosodic processing may contribute to problems in social communication associated with this personality trait.     

Alexithymic characteristics and patient-therapist interaction: a video analysis of facial affect display

Alexithymia as a disorder of affect regulation entails a patient's reduced ability to process emotional information. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of alexithymia [as measured by the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS)-26, German version] on affective correlates in a dyadic therapeutic interaction (as recorded by the Emotional Facial Action Coding System). Interviews with 12 in-patients with various psychosomatic disorders (anxiety, depression, somatisation) were videotaped and evaluated for facial affect display. The corresponding emotional reactions of the therapists (split screen) were recorded separately. Patients with high alexithymia scores (TAS-26 total score) tended to display less aggressive affects than those with low scores. The therapists' predominant emotional reaction to alexithymic patients was contempt. Our findings underscore the deep-rooted nature of alexithymia as a disorder of affect regulation. Since facial affects play a major role in the regulation of emotional interaction, this disorder may evoke negative reactions of potential caregivers.     

Validity of the BVAQ: a study in eating disorder patients and controls

Alexithymia core features are the difficulties in identifying and describing feelings; the difficulties in distinguishing feelings from the bodily sensations of emotional arousal; an impaired symbolization, as evidenced by a paucity of fantasies and other imaginative activity; and a tendency to focus on external events rather than inner experience. Several measures of alexithymia have been developed, including interviewer-rated questionnaires and self-report questionnaires. Among the self-report questionnaires, the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia scale (TAS-20) is the most commonly used, but it fails to measure all the core features of alexithymia. A recently developed instrument, the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ), allows the measurement of the alexithymia core features, as well as an additional one. It appeared to present good psychometric properties, notably the abbreviated BVAQ-form B. The results of recent studies comparing the psychometric properties of the TAS-20 and the BVAQ have recommended the BVAQ over the TAS-20. However, this questionnaire needed further validation. OBJECTIVES: Thus, the aim of the present study was to determine the convergent, discriminant and concurrent validity of the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire -- form B (BVAQ-B) in a clinical sample of 59 eating disorder patients, as well as in 191 controls. The TAS-20 constituted the gold standard for the assessment of the BVAQ-B' convergent validity. To compare the concurrent validity of the BVAQ-B and the TAS-20, participants also completed several self-reports investigating different dimensions of emotion regulation capacities: the 13-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Spielberger State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-form Y), as well as the Chapman and Chapman Physical and Social Anhedonia Scales (PAS and SAS). One way analyses of variance were used for mean scores comparisons. Convergent validity was determined using Pearson coefficients of correlation. RESULTS: Results of the analyses suggested the BVAQ-B has a satisfying convergent and discriminant validity. This was observed in both the clinical and control samples. Moreover, the comparison of the convergent validity of the BVAQ-B and the TAS-20 revealed several differences between these two alexithymia self-report questionnaires. The BVAQ-B appeared less sensitive to the subjective emotional state of the participants than the TAS-20. Whereas it was argued the TAS-20 overlaps with other emotional state scores, the BVAQ-B would allow to measure alexithymia more specifically. In addition, the present results allowed to further determine the relations between alexithymia and other dimensions of emotion regulation capacities. The analyses confirmed that alexithymia is linked to other emotion regulation dimensions such as depression and anxiety. Moreover, alexithymia was associated with physical and social anhedonia, two dimensions that received less interest in the alexithymia literature to date. This study also showed that control and clinical sample have different emotion regulation capacities. Eating disorder patients were not only more alexithymic and more depressed, but also more anxious and more anhedonic than the controls. Finally, this study revealed that alexithymia differs whether the alexithymic individuals are patients or controls. Healthy alexithymic individuals (ie, individuals categorized as alexithymic in the control group) seemed characterised by a selective deficit of emotional cognition, with sparing of emotional experience (Bermond's type II alexithymia). Alexithymics individuals of the eating -disorder group seemed particularly unabled to experience affect. This pattern could correspond to Bermond's type I alexithymia, which is characterised by the absence of emotional experience and, consequently, by the absence of the cognition accompanying the emotion. In summary, results of the present study add to the literature debating on whether alexithymia is similar in different types of population.     

Facing puberty: associations between pubertal development and neural responses to affective facial displays

Adolescence is marked by profound psychosocial and physiological changes. Although investigations into the interactions between these forces have begun to shed light on the neural correlates of affective processing during the transition to adolescence, relatively little is known about the relationship between pubertal development and emotion perception at the neural level. In the current longitudinal study, 45 neurotypical participants were shown affective facial displays while undergoing fMRI, at ages 10 and 13. Neural responses to emotional expressions at both time points were then correlated with a self-report measure of pubertal development, revealing positive associations with activity in amygdala, thalamus and visual cortical areas at age 10 that increased in magnitude and extent by age 13. At the latter time point, pubertal development was additionally correlated with enhanced responses to faces in temporal pole, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and dorsomedial PFC. Longitudinal comparisons revealed that the relationships between pubertal development and activity in the amygdala, hippocampus and temporal pole were significantly stronger during early adolescence than late childhood. These results suggest that pubertal development per se is linked to neural processing of socioemotional stimuli, particularly with respect to the integration of complex perceptual input and higher order cortical processing of affective content.