Impaired self-awareness and theory of mind: An fMRI study of mentalizing in alexithymia
Abstract
Alexithymic individuals have difficulty in recognizing and describing emotions in themselves. We investigated the neuronal basis of mentalizing in alexithymia to determine whether there is a common neuronal substrate associated with knowing the mental states of the self and others. Individuals high in alexithymia (n = 16) and low in alexithymia (n = 14) were selected from a pool of 310 college students using a combination of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Structured Interview version of the Beth Israel Questionnaire (SIBIQ). We compared the two groups on psychological measures, including ratings of mentalizing and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), and regional brain activation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a mentalizing animation task. The results for both groups showed activation in regions associated with mentalizing: medial prefrontal cortices (MPFC), temporo-parietal junctions (TPJ), and the temporal pole (TP). Alexithymics had lower mentalizing and IRI perspective-taking scores and less activation in the right MPFC. Activity in the MPFC was positively correlated with the mentalizing score and the IRI perspective-taking score. Although there were no group differences in cerebral activity in the TPJ and the TP, the activity in the right TP had a positive correlation with mentalizing and IRI personal distress scores. These results suggest that alexithymic individuals have an impairment in mentalizing associated with an ina…
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Moriguchi and colleagues (2006) reported a greater deficit on mentalizing measured via an animated shapes task in a nonclinical sample of individuals with high alexithymia compared to low alexithymia.
“Moriguchi and colleagues (2006) reported a greater deficit on mentalizing measured via an animated shapes task in a nonclinical sample of individuals with high alexithymia compared to low alexithymia.”
From ‘Theory of Mind’ is not Theory of Emotion: a cautionary note on the reading the Mind in the Eyes test (2016) · cites this paper as Moriguchi et al., 2006
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- Authors
- Moriguchi, Y., Ohnishi, T., Lane, R. D., Maeda, M., Mori, T., Nemoto, K., Matsuda, H., & Komaki, G.
- Affiliations
- National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry (JP)
- University of Arizona (US)
- Joshibi University of Art and Design (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Ohnishi, Takashi
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2006-09
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 1472-1482
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2089144391
- Cited by
- 397
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 31 · 2014: 24 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 22
- FWCI
- 10.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Keywords
- alexithymia, mentalization, theory of mind, self-awareness, perspective taking, medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, temporal pole, emotion recognition, interpersonal reactivity, emotion regulation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Affective Symptoms, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Oxygen, Parietal Lobe, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Psychological Tests, Surveys and Questionnaires, Self Concept, Temporal Lobe, Prefrontal Cortex
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