Cargando…
Alexithymia in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Its Neural Correlates
Introduction: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a severe neurodegenerative disease that causes progressive and extensive motor deficits. Patients may also have cognitive impairments or alteration of emotional processing. Very few studies, however, have looked at deficits in how they experience...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2018
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6066614/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30087649 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2018.00566 |
_version_ | 1783342994592628736 |
---|---|
author | Benbrika, Soumia Doidy, Franck Carluer, Laurence Mondou, Audrey Buhour, Marie-Sonia Eustache, Francis Viader, Fausto Desgranges, Béatrice |
author_facet | Benbrika, Soumia Doidy, Franck Carluer, Laurence Mondou, Audrey Buhour, Marie-Sonia Eustache, Francis Viader, Fausto Desgranges, Béatrice |
author_sort | Benbrika, Soumia |
collection | PubMed |
description | Introduction: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a severe neurodegenerative disease that causes progressive and extensive motor deficits. Patients may also have cognitive impairments or alteration of emotional processing. Very few studies, however, have looked at deficits in how they experience their own feelings (alexithymia). Methods: We assessed alexithymia in 28 patients with ALS using the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), comparing them with a control group matched for sex, age, and education level. We took into account both the total score of the TAS-20 and its three subscores corresponding to the three dimensions of alexithymia: Difficulty Identifying Feelings (DIF), Difficulty Describing Feelings (DDF), and Externally Oriented Thinking (EOT). Patients also underwent a neuropsychological assessment and anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in order to correlate cognitive performances and gray matter volume and level of alexithymia. Results: On average, ALS subjects had a significantly higher total score and DIF sub-score of the TAS-20 than controls indicating an increased alexithymia in patients. Total and DIF Scores correlated significantly and negatively to gray matter volume of the prefrontal cortex, right superior temporal pole and parahippocampal gyri. No correlations were found between scores on executive functions and those on the TAS-20. Conclusion: The first stage of one's own emotional processing seems to be affected in ALS independently of executive dysfunction. This trouble seems to be underpinned by cerebral regions that are well known to be both implicated in alexithymia in healthy subjects and altered in ALS. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6066614 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-60666142018-08-07 Alexithymia in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Its Neural Correlates Benbrika, Soumia Doidy, Franck Carluer, Laurence Mondou, Audrey Buhour, Marie-Sonia Eustache, Francis Viader, Fausto Desgranges, Béatrice Front Neurol Neurology Introduction: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a severe neurodegenerative disease that causes progressive and extensive motor deficits. Patients may also have cognitive impairments or alteration of emotional processing. Very few studies, however, have looked at deficits in how they experience their own feelings (alexithymia). Methods: We assessed alexithymia in 28 patients with ALS using the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), comparing them with a control group matched for sex, age, and education level. We took into account both the total score of the TAS-20 and its three subscores corresponding to the three dimensions of alexithymia: Difficulty Identifying Feelings (DIF), Difficulty Describing Feelings (DDF), and Externally Oriented Thinking (EOT). Patients also underwent a neuropsychological assessment and anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in order to correlate cognitive performances and gray matter volume and level of alexithymia. Results: On average, ALS subjects had a significantly higher total score and DIF sub-score of the TAS-20 than controls indicating an increased alexithymia in patients. Total and DIF Scores correlated significantly and negatively to gray matter volume of the prefrontal cortex, right superior temporal pole and parahippocampal gyri. No correlations were found between scores on executive functions and those on the TAS-20. Conclusion: The first stage of one's own emotional processing seems to be affected in ALS independently of executive dysfunction. This trouble seems to be underpinned by cerebral regions that are well known to be both implicated in alexithymia in healthy subjects and altered in ALS. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-07-24 /pmc/articles/PMC6066614/ /pubmed/30087649 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2018.00566 Text en Copyright © 2018 Benbrika, Doidy, Carluer, Mondou, Buhour, Eustache, Viader and Desgranges. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Neurology Benbrika, Soumia Doidy, Franck Carluer, Laurence Mondou, Audrey Buhour, Marie-Sonia Eustache, Francis Viader, Fausto Desgranges, Béatrice Alexithymia in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Its Neural Correlates |
title | Alexithymia in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Its Neural Correlates |
title_full | Alexithymia in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Its Neural Correlates |
title_fullStr | Alexithymia in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Its Neural Correlates |
title_full_unstemmed | Alexithymia in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Its Neural Correlates |
title_short | Alexithymia in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Its Neural Correlates |
title_sort | alexithymia in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and its neural correlates |
topic | Neurology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6066614/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30087649 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2018.00566 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT benbrikasoumia alexithymiainamyotrophiclateralsclerosisanditsneuralcorrelates AT doidyfranck alexithymiainamyotrophiclateralsclerosisanditsneuralcorrelates AT carluerlaurence alexithymiainamyotrophiclateralsclerosisanditsneuralcorrelates AT mondouaudrey alexithymiainamyotrophiclateralsclerosisanditsneuralcorrelates AT buhourmariesonia alexithymiainamyotrophiclateralsclerosisanditsneuralcorrelates AT eustachefrancis alexithymiainamyotrophiclateralsclerosisanditsneuralcorrelates AT viaderfausto alexithymiainamyotrophiclateralsclerosisanditsneuralcorrelates AT desgrangesbeatrice alexithymiainamyotrophiclateralsclerosisanditsneuralcorrelates |