Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - How emotional abilities modulate the influence of early life stress on hippocampal functioning
AU - Aust, Sabine
AU - Alkan Härtwig, Elif
AU - Koelsch, Stefan
AU - Heekeren, Hauke R.
AU - Heuser, Isabella
AU - Bajbouj, Malek
N1 - © The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.
PY - 2014/7
Y1 - 2014/7
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Acoustic Stimulation
KW - Adult
KW - Affective Symptoms
KW - Auditory Perception
KW - Brain
KW - Brain Mapping
KW - Child
KW - Child Abuse
KW - Emotions
KW - Female
KW - Hippocampus
KW - Humans
KW - Magnetic Resonance Imaging
KW - Male
KW - Middle Aged
KW - Neural Pathways
KW - Photic Stimulation
KW - Stress, Psychological
KW - Visual Perception
KW - Young Adult
U2 - 10.1093/scan/nst078
DO - 10.1093/scan/nst078
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 23685776
VL - 9
SP - 1038
EP - 1045
JO - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
JF - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
SN - 1749-5016
IS - 7
ER -