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  - Gramann, Klaus
T1  - Electrophysiological evidence of early processing deficits in alexithymia
JF  - Biological psychology
N2  - Alexithymia describes difficulties to identify and describe one's emotions. Previous research focused on difficulties associated with the later processing stages of appraisal in alexithymia. We tested whether early processing deficits are apparent in alexithymic persons and whether these abnormalities contribute to later processing difficulties. 20 participants were selected and identified as either having high (HDA) or low (LDA) degrees of alexithymia. IAPS pictures were presented while EEG was recorded. For HDA subjects processing of emotional pictures was accompanied by reduced P1 amplitudes most pronounced for pleasant and neutral pictures. In response to unpleasant pictures the P3 amplitudes were reduced. These amplitude modulations were predicted only by one alexithymia facet. P1 amplitudes systematically covaried with P3 amplitudes supporting the assumption that deficits in early emotional processing contribute to later processing deficits.
KW  - Evoked potentials
KW  - Emotions
KW  - Alexithymia
KW  - Perceived arousal
KW  - Unpleasant stimuli
KW  - IAPS
Y1  - 2011
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.02.016
SN  - 0301-0511
VL  - 87
IS  - 1
SP  - 113
EP  - 121
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -