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ALEX: Neurobiological, Neuropsychological,Linguistic and Gestural Processes and Phenomena in Individuals With Alexithymia

Sponsor
Charite University, Berlin, Germany (Other)
Overall Status
Unknown status
CT.gov ID
NCT00830752
Collaborator
(none)
70
Enrollment
1
Location
10
Duration (Months)
7
Patients Per Site Per Month

Study Details

Study Description

Brief Summary

The syndrome of extremely restricted emotional competence, alexithymia, was originally conceptualized in psychoanalytic research and is now empirically and experimentally studied in clinical psychology and psychological medicine within the context of emotion regulation using neuroscientific techniques. Alexithymia refers to an individual's inability or impaired ability to name or express feelings and to distinguish them from the physical consequences of an acute or chronic stress reaction. Modern "brain-body-interface" research suggests that alexithymia represents a complex deficiency in cognitive processing and emotional regulatory processes. The neurobiological basis is assumed to be a preconscious, automatic and involuntary information transfer to the amygdalae of acquired representations of emotional contents stored in ventromedial prefrontal cortical areas.

Alexithymia is not just "emotional coldness", i.e. a limited emotionality, but essentially the detachment of feelings from language. In alexithymia the link between affective phenomena and language, understood as media-supported sign practices, is insufficient or even absent.

The purpose of our observational study is to better understand the neurobiological and neuropsychological as well as linguistic and gestural processes and determinants of this phenomenon

Condition or Disease Intervention/Treatment Phase

    Study Design

    Study Type:
    Observational
    Anticipated Enrollment :
    70 participants
    Observational Model:
    Case-Only
    Time Perspective:
    Prospective
    Official Title:
    Understanding Alexithymia
    Study Start Date :
    Feb 1, 2009
    Anticipated Primary Completion Date :
    Aug 1, 2009
    Anticipated Study Completion Date :
    Dec 1, 2009

    Outcome Measures

    Primary Outcome Measures

      Eligibility Criteria

      Criteria

      Ages Eligible for Study:
      18 Years to 60 Years
      Sexes Eligible for Study:
      All
      Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
      Yes
      Inclusion Criteria:
      • scoring high on the TAS-20
      Exclusion Criteria:

      • personal history of a mental disorder

      • currently mentally ill

      Contacts and Locations

      Locations

      Site City State Country Postal Code
      1 Charite-Dept. of Psychiatry-Campus Benjamin Franklin Berlin Germany 14050

      Sponsors and Collaborators

      • Charite University, Berlin, Germany

      Investigators

      None specified.

      Study Documents (Full-Text)

      None provided.

      More Information

      Publications

      None provided.
      Responsible Party:
      , ,
      ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
      NCT00830752
      Other Study ID Numbers:
      • ALEX 2009
      First Posted:
      Jan 28, 2009
      Last Update Posted:
      Jan 28, 2009
      Last Verified:
      Jan 1, 2009
      Keywords provided by , ,
      alexithymia
      Additional relevant MeSH terms:
      Affective Symptoms

      Study Results

      No Results Posted as of Jan 28, 2009