André Aleman

BCN NeuroImaging Center, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

Alexithymia, or ‘no words for feelings’, refers to an impairment of the ability to identify and communicate one’s emotional state, in addition to diminished affect-related fantasy and imagery. A recent study by Mantani et al. reported reduced activation of the posterior cingulate cortex in people with alexithymia when they imagined a future happy event. This finding augments the emerging understanding of the neural basis of alexithymia, and potentially provides valuable insights into brain systems underlying normal emotion processing.

TICS

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It’s not every day that a new anatomical pathway is discovered, so the recent finding that the primate thalamus receives dopaminergic inputs from various brain regions was bound to be greeted with interest. This robust and complex dopaminergic system could explain thalamic abnormalities that have been reported in conditions such as schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease.

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How do delusions occur? A recent review discusses two models; a motivational approach and a cognitive deficit approach.

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A recent review claims that there is considerable evidence that ToM is impaired in people with schizophrenia.

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The results of this study demonstrate that, in the male brain, the perception of male and female voices activates distinct brain regions.

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The genetic basis of a distressing neurological condition that prevents people from recognising faces has been pinned down. The finding may help people cope with the impairment, which the researchers believe may affect 1 in 50 people from birth.

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A French neurological team has described a surprising new brain disorder — a deficit of spontaneous conscious thinking. LaPlane and Dubois describe it as “auto-activation deficit.” (*) People with this problem lose spontaneous conscious feelings, thought and actions — until they are asked to do something. Then they act perfectly well.

Maybe it should be called Standby Disorder The neurologists write, “They tend to stay in the same place all day long, sitting on a chair or lying on their bed, taking no initiatives and asking no questions, although they answer questions appropriately. They do not move around or engage in spontaneous activity.” But “the most enigmatic symptom encountered in these patients is mental emptiness. Their mind is ‘empty, a total blank,’ they say. In most typical cases, they have no thoughts and no projections for the future.”

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