Impaired emotion recognition is linked to alexithymia in heroin addicts

PeerJ

article

Giuseppe Craparo¹  Alessio Gori²  Stefano Dell’Aera⁴  Giulia Costanzo¹  Silvia Fasciano¹  Antonia Tomasello¹  Carmelo M. Vicario⁵ 

[1] Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, Kore University of Enna;Department of Human Sciences, Lumsa University of Rome;Department of Education and Psychology, University of Florence;Department of Pathological Dependences;Wolfson Centre for Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Bangor University;School of Psychology, University of Tasmania

关键词: Reaction times;    Heroin addiction;    Alexithymia;    Accuracy;    Emotion processing;    Sadness;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.1864

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Several investigations document altered emotion processing in opiate addiction. Nevertheless, the origin of this phenomenon remains unclear. Here we examined the role of alexithymia in the ability (i.e., number of errors—accuracy and reaction times—RTs) of thirty-one heroin addicts and thirty-one healthy controls to detect several affective expressions. Results show generally lower accuracy and higher RTs in the recognition of facial expressions of emotions for patients, compared to controls. The hierarchical multivariate regression analysis shows that alexithymia might be responsible of the between groups difference with respect to the RTs in emotion detection. Overall, we provide new insights in the clinical interpretation of affective deficits in heroin addicts suggesting a role of alexithymia in their ability to recognize emotions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY