Autonomic imbalance is associated with reduced facial recognition in somatoform disorders
Abstract
Objectives Somatoform disorders are characterized by the presence of multiple somatic symptoms. While the accuracy of perceiving bodily signal (interoceptive awareness) is only sparely investigated in somatoform disorders, recent research has associated autonomic imbalance with cognitive and emotional difficulties in stress-related diseases. This study aimed to investigate how sympathovagal reactivity interacts with performance in recognizing emotions in faces (facial recognition task). Methods Using a facial recognition and appraisal task, skin conductance levels (SCLs), heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) were assessed in 26 somatoform patients and compared to healthy controls. Interoceptive awareness was assessed by a heartbeat detection task. Results We found evidence for a sympathovagal imbalance in somatoform disorders characterized by low parasympathetic reactivity during emotional tasks and increased sympathetic activation during baseline. Somatoform patients exhibited a reduced recognition performance for neutral and sad emotional expressions only. Possible confounding variables such as alexithymia, anxiety or depression were taken into account. Interoceptive awareness was reduced in somatoform patients. Conclusions Our data demonstrate an imbalance in sympathovagal activation in somatoform disorders associated with decreased parasympathetic activation. This might account for difficulties in processing of sad and neutral facial expressions in somatoform…
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In individuals with somatoform disorder, reduced interoceptive accuracy (assessed with the heartbeat counting task) and impaired recognition of facial emotion relative to typical controls have been observed.
“Reduced interoceptive accuracy (assessed with the heartbeat counting task) and impaired recognition of facial emotion relative to typical controls have also been observed in a sample of individuals with somatoform disorder (Pollatos, Herbert, et al., 2011).”
From Atypical interoception as a common risk factor for psychopathology: A review (2021) · cites this paper as Pollatos, Herbert, et al., 2011
In the somatoform disorder sample, emotion recognition was found to correlate with heart rate variability (high frequency normalised units).
“Although correlations between these two measures were not reported, emotion recognition was found to correlate with heart rate variability (high frequency normalised units).”
From Atypical interoception as a common risk factor for psychopathology: A review (2021) · cites this paper as Pollatos, Herbert, et al., 2011
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 70 · Cited by 89
- Authors
- Pollatos, O., Herbert, B. M., Wankner, S., Dietel, A., Wachsmuth, C., Henningsen, P., & Sack, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Potsdam (DE)
- Universitätsklinikum Tübingen (DE)
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
- München Klinik Bogenhausen (DE)
- TUM Klinikum (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Pollatos, Olga
- Venue
- Journal of Psychosomatic Research
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2011-10
- Volume
- 71
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 232-239
- ISSN
- 0022-3999 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2054696247
- Cited by
- 89
- References
- 70
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 2.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Psychosomatic Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- publish.UP (University of Potsdam) (submittedVersion)
- mediaTUM – the media and publications repository of the Technical University Munich (Technical University Munich) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Cardiovascular Syncope and Autonomic Disorders
- Keywords
- somatoform disorders, autonomic imbalance, sympathovagal imbalance, facial expression recognition, facial expression perception, interoceptive awareness, parasympathetic reactivity, sympathetic activation, heart rate variability, skin conductance, sad facial expressions, alexithymia
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Autonomic Nervous System, Emotions, Face, Facial Expression, Female, Heart Rate, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Surveys and Questionnaires, Somatoform Disorders, Recognition, Psychology
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
