A Resting State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study On Alexitymia

Objective: To detecting whether the abnormal brain activity exists in resting state of alexithymics by using a regional homogeneity(ReHo) approach in analyzing functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI) datasets.Methods: 18 alexithymics and 18 non-alexithymics were screened out in female students ,fMRI images were obtained in resting state from 15 alexithymics and 15 nonalexithymics. The newly Published ReHo approach (which estimates the temporal homogeneity of regional BOLD signal in the same time series)was applied to Preprocess the fMRI datasets(K=27).For exploring the ReHo diference between the alexithymics and nonalexithymics, a two-sample t test was performed on the individual ReHo maps in a voxel-by-voxel maner. Resulted statistical map was set at a combined threshold of p<0.01 and aminimum cluster size greater than 30 voxels, which resulted in a corrected threshold of p<0.05.Results: Compared with nonalexithymics, alexithymics showed increased ReHo of blood oxygen level dependent(BOLD)signal in resting brain (p<0.05).The decreased ReHo is distributed over left occipital lobe, left cuneus, left precuneus, left lingual gyrus and right frontal lobe, right middle frontal, right gyrus, right frontal Lobe, right inferior frontal gyrus and right precuneus.Conclusion: The resting state fMRI stuty showed that abnormal brain activity of alexithymics might exist in resting state. The ReHo may be potentially helpful in understanting resting state of alexithymics.