Hemispheric transfer in alexithymic subjects

The emotion-feeling dissociation, which characterizes alexithymic subjects, has been ascribed to an impairment in callosal transfer of information. However, the results are not always unambiguous and they are often found using low sensitive interhemispheric transfer measures. We proposed to evaluate this hypothesis using a Poffemberger paradigm on half alexithymic and half nonalexithymic subjects. Results showed shorter RT in the uncrossed as respect to crossed conditions and an impairment, specific for the transfer from the right hemisphere to the left, only in the non alexithymic subjects, suggesting a specific disadvantage for the emotional hemisphere.