TY - JOUR A1 - Albrecht, Jessica A1 - Kopietz, Rainer A1 - Linn, Jennifer A1 - Sakar, Vehbi A1 - Anzinger, Andrea A1 - Schreder, Tatjana A1 - Pollatos, Olga A1 - Brückmann, Hartmut-Josef A1 - Kobal, Gerd A1 - Wiesmann, Martin T1 - Activation of olfactory and trigeminal cortical areas following stimulation of the nasal mucosa with low concentrations of S(-)-nicotine vapor : an fMRI study on chemosensory perception N2 - Applied to the nasal mucosa in low concentrations, nicotine vapor evokes odorous sensations (mediated by the olfactory system) whereas at higher concentrations nicotine vapor additionally produces burning and stinging sensations in the nose (mediated by the trigeminal system). The objective of this study was to determine whether intranasal stimulation with suprathreshold concentrations of S(-)-nicotine vapor causes brain activation in olfactory cortical areas or if trigeminal cortical areas are also activated. Individual olfactory detection thresholds for S(-)-nicotine were determined in 19 healthy occasional smokers using a computer-controlled air-dilution olfactometer. Functional magnetic resonance images were acquired using a 1.5T MR scanner with applications of nicotine in concentrations at or just above the individual"s olfactory detection threshold. Subjects reliably perceived the stimuli as being odorous. Accordingly, activation of brain areas known to be involved in processing of olfactory stimuli was identified. Although most of the subjects never or only rarely observed a burning or painful sensation in the nose, brain areas associated with the processing of painful stimuli were activated in all subjects. This indicates that the olfactory and trigeminal systems are activated during perception of nicotine and it is not possible to completely separate olfactory from trigeminal effects by lowering the concentration of the applied nicotine. In conclusion, even at low concentrations that do not consistently lead to painful sensations, intranasally applied nicotine activates both the olfactory and the trigeminal system. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/109668555 SN - 1065-9471 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pollatos, Olga A1 - Gramann, Klaus T1 - Attenuated modulation of brain activity accompanies emotion regulation deficits in alexithymia JF - Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research N2 - The personality trait alexithymia has been associated with deficits in emotion regulation; nevertheless, experimental investigations on this research question are sparse. We investigated reappraisal as one emotion regulation strategy in 44 healthy participants with high (HDA) versus low (LDA) degrees of alexithymia. High density EEG and spatiotemporal current density reconstruction were used to characterize the time course of emotion regulation and to identify brain regions involved. Main results were that reappraisal was accompanied by reduced arousal and significant amplitude reduction of P3 and slow wave in the LDA group only. In contrast to the LDA group, reappraisal was not associated with an increase of activation in fusiform gyrus and inferior temporal gyrus in the HDA group. We demonstrate profound deficits in emotion regulation, which might contribute to everyday problems of social functioning in alexithymia. KW - Alexithymia KW - Emotion regulation KW - Reappraisal KW - Evoked potentials KW - Current source density reconstruction Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.2011.01348.x SN - 0048-5772 VL - 49 IS - 5 SP - 651 EP - 658 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pollatos, Olga A1 - Herbert, Beate M. A1 - Wankner, Sarah A1 - Dietel, Anja A1 - Wachsmuth, Cornelia A1 - Henningsen, Peter A1 - Sack, Martin T1 - Autonomic imbalance is associated with reduced facial recognition in somatoform disorders JF - Journal of psychosomatic research N2 - Objectives: Somatoform disorders are characterized by the presence of multiple somatic symptoms. While the accuracy of perceiving bodily signal (interoceptive awareness) is only sparely investigated in somatoform disorders, recent research has associated autonomic imbalance with cognitive and emotional difficulties in stress-related diseases. This study aimed to investigate how sympathovagal reactivity interacts with performance in recognizing emotions in faces (facial recognition task). Methods: Using a facial recognition and appraisal task, skin conductance levels (SCLs), heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) were assessed in 26 somatoform patients and compared to healthy controls. Interoceptive awareness was assessed by a heartbeat detection task. Results: We found evidence for a sympathovagal imbalance in somatoform disorders characterized by low parasympathetic reactivity during emotional tasks and increased sympathetic activation during baseline. Somatoform patients exhibited a reduced recognition performance for neutral and sad emotional expressions only. Possible confounding variables such as alexithymia, anxiety or depression were taken into account. Interoceptive awareness was reduced in somatoform patients. Conclusions: Our data demonstrate an imbalance in sympathovagal activation in somatoform disorders associated with decreased parasympathetic activation. This might account for difficulties in processing of sad and neutral facial expressions in somatoform patients which might be a pathogenic mechanism for increased everyday vulnerability. KW - Somatoform disorder KW - Interoceptive awareness KW - Facial recognition KW - Autonomic response KW - Heart rate variability Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2011.03.012 SN - 0022-3999 VL - 71 IS - 4 SP - 232 EP - 239 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pollatos, Olga A1 - Dietel, Anja A1 - Herbert, Beate M. A1 - Wankner, Sarah A1 - Wachsmuth, Cornelia A1 - Henningsen, Peter A1 - Sack, Martin T1 - Blunted autonomic reactivity and increased pain tolerance in somatoform patients JF - Pain : journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain N2 - Somatoform disorders are characterized by the presence of multiple somatic symptoms. Patients often experience different pain syndromes, and recent research suggests that sympathovagal balance is disturbed in somatoform patients, which could be related to alteration in pain sensitivity. This study analyzed how proposed sympathovagal imbalance interacts with objective pain assessment and the imagination of pain in somatoform disorders. Twenty-one patients (4 men) with diagnosed multisomatoform disorder were included in the study and matched to healthy control subjects. Autonomic measures and heart rate variability were assessed during baseline; pain perception was assessed by means of a pressure algometer and pain imagination. We found evidence for a sympathovagal imbalance in somatoform disorders characterized by low parasympathetic activation and high sympathetic activation during all conditions. Additionally, somatoform patients had reduced pain tolerance. Vagal withdrawal during pain assessment was more pronounced for healthy control subjects and correlated positively with assessed pain tolerance. During imagination somatoform, patients reported higher pain unpleasantness and higher pain intensity as compared to control subjects. We conclude that our data demonstrate an imbalance in sympathovagal activation and a hyposensitivity to pain tolerance stimuli in somatoform disorders. Parasympathetic reactivity might form crucial information when judging pain-associated affective-motivational components. Our results might be attributable to a deficient detection of visceral signals and might be a pathogenetic mechanism for the development of emotional difficulties and increased everyday vulnerability in somatoform patients. KW - Autonomic KW - Heart rate variability KW - Pain threshold KW - Pain tolerance KW - Response KW - Somatoform disorder KW - Sympathovagal balance Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2011.05.024 SN - 0304-3959 VL - 152 IS - 9 SP - 2157 EP - 2164 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Koch, Anne A1 - Pollatos, Olga T1 - Cardiac sensitivity in children: Sex differences and its relationship to parameters of emotional processing JF - Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research N2 - In adults, the level of ability to perceive one's own body signals plays an important role for many concepts of emotional experience as demonstrated for emotion processing or emotion regulation. Representative data on perception of body signals and its emotional correlates in children is lacking. Therefore, the present study investigated the cardiac sensitivity of 1,350 children between 6 and 11 years of age in a heartbeat perception task. Our main findings demonstrated the distribution of cardiac sensitivity in children as well as associations with interpersonal emotional intelligence and adaptability. Furthermore, independent of body mass index, boys showed a significantly higher cardiac sensitivity than girls. We conclude that cardiac sensitivity in children appears to show weaker but similar characteristics and relations to emotional parameters as found in adults, so that a dynamic developmental process can be assumed. KW - Children KW - Emotional intelligence KW - Heartbeat perception KW - Heart rate variability KW - Interoceptive sensitivity Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12233 SN - 0048-5772 SN - 1469-8986 VL - 51 IS - 9 SP - 932 EP - 941 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pollatos, Olga A1 - Schubö, Anna A1 - Herbert, Beate M. A1 - Matthias, Ellen A1 - Schandry, Rainer T1 - Deficits in early emotional reactivity in alexithymia N2 - Abstract Alexithymia is characterized by a difficulty in identifying and describing one"s emotions. This study addressed the question of whether alexithymic tendencies are related to limited affective reactivity to briefly presented emotional stimuli. Skin conductance responses were assessed and backward masking was used to minimize elaborated processing of emotional pictures. Results indicated that alexithymic tendencies are associated with smaller electrodermal responses to briefly presented negative pictures. These effects were driven by difficulties in identifying and communicating emotions whereas externally orientated thinking was unrelated to affective reactivity. We conclude that there is an early processing deficit in response to negative stimuli in participants with high scores in alexithymia. Differences in the early emotional reactivity to arousing material could contribute to difficulties in emotional processes related to alexithymia. Y1 - 2008 UR - http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/issn?DESCRIPTOR=PRINTISSN&VALUE=0048-5772 SN - 0048-5772 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pollatos, Olga A1 - Werner, Natalie S. A1 - Duschek, Stefan A1 - Schandry, Rainer A1 - Matthias, Ellen A1 - Traut-Mattausch, Eva A1 - Herbert, Beate M. T1 - Differential effects of alexithymia subscales on autonomic reactivity and anxiety during social stress JF - Journal of psychosomatic research N2 - Objectives: Alexithymia is characterized by a difficulty in identifying and describing one's emotions. Recent research has associated differential effects of the alexithymia facets to hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis markers during stress. This study aimed to analyze how the facets of alexithymia interact with autonomic reactivity as well as self- and observer-rated anxiety during a social stress task. Methods: With the use of a public-speaking paradigm, skin conductance levels (SCLs) and heart rate (HR) during the defined periods of baseline, preparation, stress, and recovery were assessed in 60 volunteers (42 females, mean age 22.8) categorized as having either high (HDA) or low (LDA) degrees of alexithymia. Results: We found smaller SCLs during preparation and speech in the HDA group. Regression analyses indicated that only the alexithymia facet "difficulty in describing feelings" (DDF) was associated with smaller electrodermal responses. In the HDA group, self- and observer-rated anxiety was higher in the HDA than in the LDA group, which was attributable to higher scores in the subscales "difficulty in identifying feelings" (DIF) and "externally oriented thinking" (EOT). Conclusions: Our data support and specify the decoupling hypothesis of alexithymia by showing that the facets of alexithymia are differentially related to autonomic reactivity as well as self- and observer-rated anxiety during social stress. KW - Alexithymia KW - Autonomic response KW - Social stress KW - Skin conductance KW - Anxiety KW - Social performance KW - Decoupling hypothesis Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2010.12.003 SN - 0022-3999 VL - 70 IS - 6 SP - 525 EP - 533 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pollatos, Olga A1 - Traut-Mattausch, Eva A1 - Schandry, Rainer T1 - Differential effects of anxiety and depression on interoceptive accuracy N2 - BACKGROUND: Feedback from the body is assumed to be altered in depression. Nevertheless, empirical studies investigating this assumed relationship remain sparse. This study aimed to examine interrelations between the ability to perceive heartbeats accurately (interoceptive awareness), depressive symptoms, and anxiety in healthy participants. METHODS: A well-validated heartbeat perception task to measure interoceptive awareness together with two questionnaires indexing anxiety and depression were administered to 119 participants. RESULTS: As main results we observed a negative correlation between heartbeat perception and depression. Only when focussing on high anxiety levels this negative correlation coefficient between depression and interoception remained significant. CONCLUSIONS: Our results highlight the possible relationship between depressive symptoms and interoceptive awareness and may have further implications for theoretical models of anxiety disorders and their treatment. Further research is required to examine the potential consequences of altering interoceptive awareness in healthy subjects in relation to depression and anxiety. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/38924 SN - 1091-4269 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Nowozin, Claudia A1 - Wahnschaffe, A. A1 - Fay, Doris A1 - Pollatos, Olga A1 - Kunz, D. T1 - Does bright light interfere with fear learning? T2 - Journal of sleep research : official journal of the European Sleep Research Society Y1 - 2014 SN - 0962-1105 SN - 1365-2869 VL - 23 SP - 102 EP - 102 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Herbert, Beate M. A1 - Herbert, Cornelia A1 - Pollatos, Olga A1 - Weimer, Katja A1 - Enck, Paul A1 - Sauer, Helene A1 - Zipfel, Stephan T1 - Effects of short-term food deprivation on interoceptive awareness, feelings and autonomic cardiac activity JF - Biological psychology N2 - The perception of internal bodily signals (interoception) plays a relevant role for emotion processing and feelings. This study investigated changes of interoceptive awareness and cardiac autonomic activity induced by short-term food deprivation and its relationship to hunger and affective experience. 20 healthy women were exposed to 24 h of food deprivation in a controlled setting. Interoceptive awareness was assessed by using a heartbeat tracking task. Felt hunger, cardiac autonomic activity, mood and subjective appraisal of interoceptive sensations were assessed before and after fasting. Results show that short-term fasting intensifies interoceptive awareness, not restricted to food cues, via changes of autonomic cardiac and/or cardiodynamic activity. The increase of interoceptive awareness was positively related to felt hunger. Additionally, the results demonstrate the role of cardiac vagal activity as a potential index of emotion related self-regulation, for hunger, mood and the affective appraisal of interoceptive signals during acute fasting. KW - Interoceptive awareness KW - Hunger KW - Autonomic activity KW - Food deprivation KW - Self-regulation KW - Eating disorders Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.09.004 SN - 0301-0511 VL - 89 IS - 1 SP - 71 EP - 79 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -