Autonomic response in the perception of disgust and happiness in depersonalization disorder
Abstract
Patients with depersonalization disorder have shown attenuated responses to emotional unpleasant stimuli, hence supporting the view that depersonalization is characterised by a selective inhibition on the processing of unpleasant emotions. It was the purpose of this study to establish if autonomic responses to facial emotional expressions also show the same blunting effect. The skin conductance responses (SCRs) of 16 patients with chronic DSM-IV depersonalization disorder, 15 normal controls and 15 clinical controls with DSM-IV anxiety disorders were recorded in response to facial expressions of happiness and disgust. Patients with anxiety disorders were found to have greater autonomic responses than patients with depersonalization, in spite of the fact that both groups had similarly high levels of subjective anxiety as measured by anxiety scales. SCR to happy faces did not vary across groups. The findings of this study provide further support to the idea that patients with depersonalization have a selective impairment in the processing of threatening or unpleasant emotional stimuli.
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Increased recruitment of the PFC may lead to dampened activity in the amygdala and a marked attenuation of automatic responses.
“Increased recruitment of the PFC may (both directly and indirectly via the ACC) lead to dampened activity in the amygdala and a marked attenuation of automatic responses, comparable to “shutting down the affective system” [62, 64–66].”
From Dissociation and Alterations in Brain Function and Structure: Implications for Borderline Personality Disorder (2017) · cites this paper as [66]
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- Authors
- Sierra, M., Senior, C., Phillips, M. L., & David, A. S.
- Affiliations
- King's College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Sierra, Mauricio
- Venue
- Psychiatry Research
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2006-12
- Volume
- 145
- Issue
- 2-3
- Pages
- 225-231
- ISSN
- 0165-1781 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1979338157
- Cited by
- 58
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 5 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 1.70
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychiatry Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Aston Publications Explorer (Aston University) (acceptedVersion)
- ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Cardiovascular Syncope and Autonomic Disorders
- Keywords
- depersonalization disorder, autonomic responses, skin conductance response, emotional facial expressions, disgust, happiness, emotional processing, anxiety disorders, subjective anxiety, negative emotions
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Affect, Anxiety Disorders, Depersonalization, Female, Galvanic Skin Response, Happiness, Humans, Male, Visual Perception, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
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