title: Alexithymia in healthy young men: a voxel-based morphometric study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Alexithymia is a personality construct predominately associated with an impaired ability to identify and communicate emotions. Functional imaging studies showed that an altered function of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) may be relevant in alexithymia. In this study we investigated if the altered functional anatomy is related to structural changes (A) in the whole brain and (B) specifically in the ACC by applying a region-of-interest analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  33 high- and 31 low-alexithymic right-handed young male subjects (selected by the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, TAS-20) were investigated using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) on high-resolution 3D magnetic resonance images. The group differences were analyzed by applying voxel-wise comparisons using two-sample t-tests. Moreover regression analyses with regard to the individual TAS-20 sum scores were calculated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Neither the subtraction analyses nor the correlation analyses revealed significant differences between high- and low-alexithymic subjects. Thus, according to our results, the null hypothesis of no structural difference between the groups could not be rejected.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings cannot be generalized to female subjects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results did not reveal morphological differences between high- and low-alexithymic subjects. The functional differences known from imaging studies could not be attributed to underlying anatomical changes. Thus, the personality trait of alexithymia might be associated with fewer morphological abnormalities than previously assumed.
authors: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Medical Faculty, University of Düsseldorf, Juelich, Germany. a.heinzel@fz-juelich.de
authors: Alexander
authors: A
authors: Heinzel
authors: Martina
authors: M
authors: Minnerop
authors: Ralf
authors: R
authors: Schäfer
authors: Hans-Wilhelm
authors: HW
authors: Müller
authors: Matthias
authors: M
authors: Franz
authors: Hubertus
authors: H
authors: Hautzel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D055815:Young Adult