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Alexithymia, interhemispheric transfer, and right hemispheric specialization: a critical review
1Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA.
Background:
One neural model of alexithymia relates the condition to poor interhemispheric transfer, while another model associates it with a disturbance in right hemisphere activity.
Methods:
The available empirical evidence directly relating alexithymia to a deficit in interhemispheric transfer and/or in right hemisphere activity is critically reviewed.
Results:
The interhemispheric transfer studies have related alexithymia to a deficit in transfer, but the nature and directionality of the transfer deficit have yet to be determined. Many of the hemispheric specialization studies do not relate alexithymia to a right hemisphere dysfunction. Shortcomings of these studies are reviewed.
Conclusions:
The hypothesis that alexithymia is related to a deficit in the right-to-left transfer of emotional information and to a right hemisphere impairment in emotion processing remains to be tested directly and definitively. Suggestions for future research are made.