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Low Autonomic Arousal Reactivity to Social Relevant Information in Alexithymia
156
IOP 2016
the social contact was created in the auditory modality (n=35 adult participants; 18 females). In agreement with our hypothesis, greater correlation between participant’s ratings and skin conductance responses was observed following the perception of their own name pronounced by another social agent, as compared to another unfamiliar name (F1,27= 5.10, P= .032) or a white noise (F1,27= 14.40, P= .0008). We are currently recording the data from the second study, in which the social contact is created in the tactile modality. Preliminary results support the hypothesis that interoceptive awareness (or bodily self-awareness) is enhanced by interpersonal contact whatever the sensory modality. Altogether, our data support the view that self-awareness emerges in the interaction between individuals.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2016.07.449
254 Low Autonomic Arousal Reactivity to Social Relevant Information in Alexithymia Eduardo S. Martínez-Velázqueza, Jacques Honoréb, Lucas De Zorzib, Cassandra Denormeb, Julieta Ramos-Loyoa, Pascal Antoineb, Jean-Louis Nandrinob, Henrique Sequeirab a Institute of Neuroscience, University of Guadalajara, Guadalajara, México b SCALab, CNRS UMR 9193, University of Lille, Lille, France Alexithymia has been related to the difficulty to identify emotional experience and to establish interpersonal relationships. One important line of research in this field during last years has aimed to disentangle the influence of emotional and social dimensions of life events. Considering that skin conductance response (SCR) constitutes a robust autonomic index of arousal related to both these dimensions, it appears interesting to use this psychophysiological indicator as a potential tool to evaluate their impact in alexithymia. This idea is reinforced by the fact that, in healthy subjects, the amplitude of SCR to stimulus with and without social relevance proved to differ. Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the effects of emotional and social visual stimulations on SCR in subjects with and without alexithymia. Method: SCRs to standardized pictures (IAPS, International Affective Pictures System) characterized by emotional (unpleasant, neutral and pleasant) and social (with and without humans) were recorded in non-alexithymic (NA, n=16) and alexithymic (A, n=16) participants, differentiated on the basis of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS; Taylor et al., 1997). All participants evaluated the valence and the arousal of pictures and responded to questionnaires of empathy, social phobia, depression, and anxiety. Results: Compared to the NA group, the A participants showed lower scores in the personal taking subscale of the empathy questionnaire and higher social phobia scores. Valence and arousal effects of the pictures on SCRs did not differ in the groups. Interestingly, the A group showed lower amplitudes of SCRs to pictures with humans than without humans whereas the opposite pattern was observed for the NA group (pb0.01). No correlation between the psychometric scores and SCR amplitude reached significance. Discussion and conclusion: Alexithymia group showed a low skill to adopt the perspective of others and a high level of social phobia. While the groups could not be distinguished on the basis of emotion effect on SCR, they clearly differed when the impact of social relevance on SCR was considered. The current study thus provides an original track toward psychophysiological foundations of alexithymia. Further investigation is needed in order to better understand the social
relationships difficulties associated with alexithymia. E.S. MartínezVelázquez was funded by CONACyT, Mexico. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2016.07.450
263 Vibrotactile sound discrimination training affects brain connectivity in profoundly deaf individuals Vanessa D. Ruiz-Stovela, Andrés A. González-Garridoa,b, Fabiola R. Gómez-Velázqueza, Hugo Vélez-Péreza, Rebecca Romo-Vázquezc, Ricardo A. Salido-Ruizc, Aurora Espinoza-Valdezc, Luis R. Camposd a Instituto de Neurociencias, Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico b O.P.D. Hospital Civil de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico c Dpto. de Ciencias Computacionales, CUCEI, Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico d Universidad de Morón, Buenos Aires, Argentina Early auditory deprivation has serious neurodevelopmental and cognitive repercussions related to impoverished language acquisition that may be associated to early changes in brain connectivity. Vibrotactile stimulation is an alternative method that allows perception and discrimination of sound, and even oral language. A vibrotactile oddball task (pure-tone frequency [target 20% (T): 700Hz; non-target 80% (NT): 900Hz] with simultaneous EEG recording was performed by 14 prelingual profoundly deaf subjects and 14 age-and-gender-matched normal-hearing (NH) subjects. The EEG recording was performed twice, before and after a short training period (5 one-hour sessions; in 2.5-3 weeks). Sound-wave stimuli were delivered by a portable stimulator system, a tiny flexible plastic membrane with a 78.5mm2 surface area, worn on the right index finger. A significant P300 amplitude increase and behavioral improvement was observed in both groups. However, there were no differences between groups. Furthermore, the parietal P3 component was more widely distributed and lateralized to the right in the profoundly deaf. A graph-theory based analysis evaluated brain connectivity and showed that a brief training prompted significant fronto-central group differences. The association between ERP tools and graph methods depicts not only neural plasticity changes in deaf individuals but also the development of a different neural ensemble to efficiently engage additional attention and memory resources to fulfill task demands. These findings could represent a novel way of discriminating sound via the index-fingertip somatosensory mechanoreceptors. Vibrotactile feedback in speech therapy for profoundly deaf individuals could have significant clinical implications in language development, and moreover, on cognition. Further studies are necessary to clarify brain connectivity dynamic variation associated with the performance of vibrotactile language-related discrimination tasks and the effect of lengthier training programs. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2016.07.451
264 Mental and motor delay in toddlers: The possible role of mothers’ thrombophilic predisposition Olga Lvovaa, Sergey Kiseleva, Dimitri Baranovb a Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N.Yeltsin, Yekaterinburg, Russia b City Perinatal Center, Clinic Pediatric Hospital 10, Yekaterinburg, Russia
IOP 2016
the social contact was created in the auditory modality (n=35 adult participants; 18 females). In agreement with our hypothesis, greater correlation between participant’s ratings and skin conductance responses was observed following the perception of their own name pronounced by another social agent, as compared to another unfamiliar name (F1,27= 5.10, P= .032) or a white noise (F1,27= 14.40, P= .0008). We are currently recording the data from the second study, in which the social contact is created in the tactile modality. Preliminary results support the hypothesis that interoceptive awareness (or bodily self-awareness) is enhanced by interpersonal contact whatever the sensory modality. Altogether, our data support the view that self-awareness emerges in the interaction between individuals.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2016.07.449
254 Low Autonomic Arousal Reactivity to Social Relevant Information in Alexithymia Eduardo S. Martínez-Velázqueza, Jacques Honoréb, Lucas De Zorzib, Cassandra Denormeb, Julieta Ramos-Loyoa, Pascal Antoineb, Jean-Louis Nandrinob, Henrique Sequeirab a Institute of Neuroscience, University of Guadalajara, Guadalajara, México b SCALab, CNRS UMR 9193, University of Lille, Lille, France Alexithymia has been related to the difficulty to identify emotional experience and to establish interpersonal relationships. One important line of research in this field during last years has aimed to disentangle the influence of emotional and social dimensions of life events. Considering that skin conductance response (SCR) constitutes a robust autonomic index of arousal related to both these dimensions, it appears interesting to use this psychophysiological indicator as a potential tool to evaluate their impact in alexithymia. This idea is reinforced by the fact that, in healthy subjects, the amplitude of SCR to stimulus with and without social relevance proved to differ. Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the effects of emotional and social visual stimulations on SCR in subjects with and without alexithymia. Method: SCRs to standardized pictures (IAPS, International Affective Pictures System) characterized by emotional (unpleasant, neutral and pleasant) and social (with and without humans) were recorded in non-alexithymic (NA, n=16) and alexithymic (A, n=16) participants, differentiated on the basis of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS; Taylor et al., 1997). All participants evaluated the valence and the arousal of pictures and responded to questionnaires of empathy, social phobia, depression, and anxiety. Results: Compared to the NA group, the A participants showed lower scores in the personal taking subscale of the empathy questionnaire and higher social phobia scores. Valence and arousal effects of the pictures on SCRs did not differ in the groups. Interestingly, the A group showed lower amplitudes of SCRs to pictures with humans than without humans whereas the opposite pattern was observed for the NA group (pb0.01). No correlation between the psychometric scores and SCR amplitude reached significance. Discussion and conclusion: Alexithymia group showed a low skill to adopt the perspective of others and a high level of social phobia. While the groups could not be distinguished on the basis of emotion effect on SCR, they clearly differed when the impact of social relevance on SCR was considered. The current study thus provides an original track toward psychophysiological foundations of alexithymia. Further investigation is needed in order to better understand the social
relationships difficulties associated with alexithymia. E.S. MartínezVelázquez was funded by CONACyT, Mexico. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2016.07.450
263 Vibrotactile sound discrimination training affects brain connectivity in profoundly deaf individuals Vanessa D. Ruiz-Stovela, Andrés A. González-Garridoa,b, Fabiola R. Gómez-Velázqueza, Hugo Vélez-Péreza, Rebecca Romo-Vázquezc, Ricardo A. Salido-Ruizc, Aurora Espinoza-Valdezc, Luis R. Camposd a Instituto de Neurociencias, Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico b O.P.D. Hospital Civil de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico c Dpto. de Ciencias Computacionales, CUCEI, Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico d Universidad de Morón, Buenos Aires, Argentina Early auditory deprivation has serious neurodevelopmental and cognitive repercussions related to impoverished language acquisition that may be associated to early changes in brain connectivity. Vibrotactile stimulation is an alternative method that allows perception and discrimination of sound, and even oral language. A vibrotactile oddball task (pure-tone frequency [target 20% (T): 700Hz; non-target 80% (NT): 900Hz] with simultaneous EEG recording was performed by 14 prelingual profoundly deaf subjects and 14 age-and-gender-matched normal-hearing (NH) subjects. The EEG recording was performed twice, before and after a short training period (5 one-hour sessions; in 2.5-3 weeks). Sound-wave stimuli were delivered by a portable stimulator system, a tiny flexible plastic membrane with a 78.5mm2 surface area, worn on the right index finger. A significant P300 amplitude increase and behavioral improvement was observed in both groups. However, there were no differences between groups. Furthermore, the parietal P3 component was more widely distributed and lateralized to the right in the profoundly deaf. A graph-theory based analysis evaluated brain connectivity and showed that a brief training prompted significant fronto-central group differences. The association between ERP tools and graph methods depicts not only neural plasticity changes in deaf individuals but also the development of a different neural ensemble to efficiently engage additional attention and memory resources to fulfill task demands. These findings could represent a novel way of discriminating sound via the index-fingertip somatosensory mechanoreceptors. Vibrotactile feedback in speech therapy for profoundly deaf individuals could have significant clinical implications in language development, and moreover, on cognition. Further studies are necessary to clarify brain connectivity dynamic variation associated with the performance of vibrotactile language-related discrimination tasks and the effect of lengthier training programs. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2016.07.451
264 Mental and motor delay in toddlers: The possible role of mothers’ thrombophilic predisposition Olga Lvovaa, Sergey Kiseleva, Dimitri Baranovb a Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N.Yeltsin, Yekaterinburg, Russia b City Perinatal Center, Clinic Pediatric Hospital 10, Yekaterinburg, Russia