title: How emotional abilities modulate the influence of early life stress on hippocampal functioning.
abstract: Early life stress (ELS) is known to have considerable influence on brain development, mental health and affective functioning. Previous investigations have shown that alexithymia, a prevalent personality trait associated with difficulties experiencing and verbalizing emotions, is particularly related to ELS. The aim of the present study was to investigate how neural correlates of emotional experiences in alexithymia are altered in the presence and absence of ELS. Therefore, 50 healthy individuals with different levels of alexithymia were matched regarding ELS and investigated with respect to neural correlates of audio-visually induced emotional experiences via functional magnetic resonance imaging. The main finding was that ELS modulated hippocampal responses to pleasant (>neutral) stimuli in high-alexithymic individuals, whereas there was no such modulation in low-alexithymic individuals matched for ELS. Behavioral and psychophysiological results followed a similar pattern. When considered independent of ELS, alexithymia was associated with decreased responses in insula (pleasant > neutral) and temporal pole (unpleasant > neutral). Our results show that the influence of ELS on emotional brain responses seems to be modulated by an individual's degree of alexithymia. Potentially, protective and adverse effects of emotional abilities on brain responses to emotional experiences are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, GermanyCluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, GermanyCluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, Germany sabine.aust@fu-berlin.de.
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Aust
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, GermanyCluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Elif
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Alkan Härtwig
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, GermanyCluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Koelsch
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, GermanyCluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Hauke R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Heekeren
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, GermanyCluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, GermanyCluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Isabella
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Heuser
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, GermanyCluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, GermanyCluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany, and Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Eschenallee 3, 14150 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Malek
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bajbouj
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: alexithymia; early life stress; emotion; fMRI; hippocampus