Investigation of facial emotion recognition, alexithymia, and levels of anxiety and depression in patients with somatic symptoms and related disorders

Öztürk, Ahmet; Kılıç, Alperen; Deveci, Erdem; Kırpınar, İsmet

doi:10.2147/ndt.s106989

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The majority of the studies confirmed reduced emotion-recognition accuracy in patients with somatoform disorders [111,125–128], fibromyalgia [120], chronic facial pain [129] and temporomandibular disorders [130], compared to healthy controls. Reduced recognition performance was reported for the individual emotions of anger, joy, sadness, fear, disgust, and neutral emotions [111,120,126,127], even after controlling for alexithymia, depression and anxiety [111]. However, in contrast to those studies, one study reported a trend towards patients’ better performance in recognition of emotions, especially of angry faces [100].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lower emotion recognition performance was usually associated with alexithymic traits of the patients, and in some studies, the difference between patients and healthy controls diminished when alexithymia was statistically controlled. These studies suggested that emotion recognition difficulties are secondary to more basic problems, such as alexithymia or depression [127,128,130]. One interesting finding was that patients with chronic facial pain who were less accurate in recognizing emotions compared to controls were also less accurate in recognition of left/right facial movement.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Emotion regulation in patients with somatic symptom and related disorders: A systematic review

et al. 2019

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Background Somatic symptoms and related disorders (SSD) are prevalent phenomena in the health-care system. Disturbances in emotion regulation (ER) are commonly observed in patients suffering from SSD. Objectives This review aimed to examine ER processes that characterize SSD by a systematic analysis of the available empirical studies. Data sources PsycINFO and PubMed databases for the articles published between January 1985 and June 2018. Search terms “emotion/al regulation” or “affect regulation” and various forms of SSD. Study eligibility criteria Empirical studies that a) assigned adolescent or adult patients suffering from SSD based on a clinical diagnosis, and b) examined the relationship between ER and SSD, were included. Study synthesis methods A tabular summary of the articles was generated according to study characteristics, study quality, variables, and findings. The findings were organized based on ER variables used in the articles and diagnoses of SSD, which were then re-organized under the main constituents of ER (attention, body, and knowledge). Results The findings of the 64 articles largely supported the association between SSD and disturbances in ER, which are usually shared by different diagnoses of SSD. The results indicate that patients show a reduced engagement with cognitive content of emotions. On the other hand, bodily constituents of ER seem to depict an over-reactive pattern. Similarly, the patients tend to encounter difficulties in flexibly disengaging their (spontaneous) attention from emotional material. Limitations There is a scarcity of longitudinal designs, randomized controlled trials, experiments, and diary studies suited to investigate the short- and long-term causal relationship between ER and SSD. Symptoms of SSD and measures to assess emotion regulation are heterogeneous. Conclusions and implications Assessment of ER processes is potentially useful to understand SSD and for treatment planning. Furthermore, a concurrent investigation of the dynamic interaction of the ER modalities promises insights for better understanding of the role of ER in development, course, and maintenance of SSD.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion regulation in patients with somatic symptom and related disorders: A systematic review

et al. 2019

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“…9 Even in patients with acquired brain injury, facial recognition skills have been trained. 10,11,12 The present study proposes a psychophysiological treatment based on the induction of voluntary emotional facial expression to evaluate the effect of autonomic activity (nasal temperature and heart rate) in a patient with chronic pain with a high level of alexithymia.…”

Section: Pan American Journal Of Medical Thermologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Nasal thermal activity during voluntary facial expression in a patient with chronic pain and alexithymia

Medina

Trejo

Albarrán

et al. 2018

Pan Am J Med Thermol

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The presence of alexithymia (difficulty in recognizing and expressing emotions and feelings) is one of the psychological factors that has been studied in patients with chronic pain. Different psychological strategies have been used for its management; however, none of them regulates the autonomic activity. We present the case of a 74-year-old female patient diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis with alexithymia. For twelve years he has been taking pregabalin for pain. The main objective of this case study was to perform a biopsychosocial evaluation of pain (level of interleukin 6 concentration, to evaluate the inflammatory appearance, psychophysiological nasal thermal evaluation and psychosocial measures associated with pain). He was presented videos with affective scenes of various emotions (joy, sadness, fear, pain, anger). The results show that, when the patient observes the videos, there is little nasal thermal variability. However, when facial movements are induced for 10 seconds of a facial expression, a thermal variation is reached around 1 ° C. The induced facial expressions that decrease the temperature are those of anger and pain, which coincide with the priority needs of the patient according to the biopsychosocial profile. The results are discussed in the clinical context of the use of facial expressions to promote autonomic regulation in this population.

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“…Regarding emotion recognition, many studies show a significant alteration in patients diagnosed with mental disorders: In depression, a bias toward negative emotion has been described (41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46) and hypothesized to be a predictor for relapse when distinctive (47,48). Altered emotion recognition was also found in patients with high levels of social anxiety (49) and in children and adults with posttraumatic stress disorder (50,51), whereas differences were no longer visible in patients with somatoform disorders when corrected for alexithymia and anxiety (52,53).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of emotional stimuli on response inhibition in an inpatient and day-hospital patient psychosomatic cohort

Westbomke,

Schag,

Derntl

et al. 2023

Front. Psychiatry

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ObjectivesTo correctly recognize and respond to your counterpart's emotion is essential for a successful get-together. To ensure this, emotional processes and inhibitory control are linked and interact with each other. However, this interaction can be altered in several mental disorders. In a group of psychosomatic patients, we investigated possible differences in the response inhibition between neutral and emotional stimuli and whether a psychosomatic inpatient and day-hospital patient treatment influences response inhibition profiles.MethodsOne hundred and one patients, diagnosed with different psychiatric diagnoses (77 women, 41.43 ± 13.13 years), completed an emotional stop-signal task (ESST) and an impulsive behavior scale upon admission in an inpatient and day-hospital patient treatment on a psychosomatic ward (T0) and at discharge (T1). Patients with depressive disorders completed the test again after 1 year (follow-up measurement T2, n = 22). Emotional stimuli were angry and neutral faces. Stop-signal reaction time (SSRT) and stop-signal delay (SSD) were calculated as the main behavioral parameters.ResultsWe found a significantly higher SSRT for neutral than angry faces at both admission (8.538 ms, p < 0.001) and discharge (11.142 ms, p < 0.001), with a matching higher SSD for angry than neutral faces at both timepoints (T0: 8.360 ms, p < 0.001, T1: (6.950 ms, p < 0.001). The SSRT for angry faces significantly decreased after treatment (-8.485 ms, p = 0.0110). For neutral faces, the decrease failed to reach significance (−5.881 ms, p = 0.250). A significant decrease in SSRT for neutral faces in patients with depressive disorders was found 1 year after discharge compared with admission (−19.040 ms, p = 0.0380).ConclusionOur data demonstrate a decreased response inhibition for neutral compared with emotional stimuli and an improved response inhibition for angry faces after discharge in a psychosomatic inpatient and day-hospital patient cohort. Additionally, patients with depressive disorders displayed a significantly better response inhibition for neutral faces 1 year after discharge compared with the baseline measurement. With this study, we provide more evidence for altered emotional response inhibition in different mental disorders and a hint that psychosomatic inpatient and day-hospital patient treatment may help to normalize it, even if the effects remained small and it needs further research to prove causality.

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Investigation of facial emotion recognition, alexithymia, and levels of anxiety and depression in patients with somatic symptoms and related disorders

Cited by 10 publications

References 30 publications

Emotion regulation in patients with somatic symptom and related disorders: A systematic review

Emotion regulation in patients with somatic symptom and related disorders: A systematic review

Nasal thermal activity during voluntary facial expression in a patient with chronic pain and alexithymia

The impact of emotional stimuli on response inhibition in an inpatient and day-hospital patient psychosomatic cohort

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