Feelings you can't imagine: towards a cognitive neuroscience of alexithymia.
Alexithymia, or 'no words for feelings', refers to an impairment of the ability to identify and communicate one's emotional state, in addition to diminished affect-related fantasy and imagery. A recent study by Mantani et al. reported reduced activation of the posterior cingulate cortex in people with alexithymia when they imagined a future happy event. This finding augments the emerging understanding of the neural basis of alexithymia, and potentially provides valuable insights into brain systems underlying normal emotion processing.
Aleman
André
A
BCN NeuroImaging Center, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. a.aleman@med.umcg.nl
D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology