Emotional arousal in patients with functional movement disorders: A pupillometry study.
J Psychosom Res
; 162: 111043, 2022 11.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36166959
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
Pathophysiology explanations for functional movement disorders often assume a role for emotional hyperarousal. Pupillometry is a validated method for evaluation of emotional arousal by detecting changes in pupil size in response to emotional stimuli. In a case-control study design, we aimed to study objective and subjective emotional arousal using pupillometry and affective ratings. To assess attentional engagement by affective stimuli, we used videooculographic tracking of eye movement patterns (scanpath).METHODS:
Twenty-five female patients with functional movement disorders (mean age 40.9 [SD 12.7] years) and 23 age matched healthy female controls participated in the study. Using infrared high-resolution eye-tracker, both pupil size and eye movement pattern in response to emotionally charged erotic, adventure, threat, victim, and neutral pictures were recorded along with subjective ratings of emotional valence and arousal of the presented pictures.RESULTS:
A between-group comparison showed significantly smaller pupil dilation to adventure stimuli compared to neutral stimuli in patients compared to controls (P < 0.004, bootstrap, uncorr., adj. η2 = 0.00). No significant difference in pupillary response to other stimuli and scanpath parameters was found between the groups. Patients rated significantly lower emotional arousal to erotic pictures than controls (P < 0.001, bootstrap, uncorr., adj. η2 = 0.09).CONCLUSION:
This study did not find evidence of autonomous or subjective emotional hyperarousal. The mismatch between objective autonomic measures and subjective arousal ratings in patients is of pathophysiological interest and in line with recent findings of impaired interoception in functional movement disorders.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Nível de Alerta
/
Transtorno Conversivo
Tipo de estudo:
Observational_studies
Limite:
Adult
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Female
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Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Psychosom Res
Ano de publicação:
2022
Tipo de documento:
Article