RESEARCH - Brain blocks out reactions of others in patients with disfiguring psoriasis

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Brain Blocks Out Expressions of Disgust in Patients With Disfiguring

Skin Condition

Janis

September 3, 2009 — Patients with disfiguring psoriasis appear to have

altered brain responses to disgust, allowing them to cope with the

social stigma of their illness by " screening out " others' facial

expressions, a new brain-imaging study suggests.

In a study published online August 27 in the Journal of Investigative

Dermatology, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging

(fMRI) to show that psoriasis sufferers presented with images of

disgusted faces responded with less than normal activity in the

insular cortex, the brain area associated with both feelings and

observations of disgust.

The subjects were also less able to recognize overtly different

intensities of disgust, assessed with the facial expression

recognition task (FERT).

Lead author C. Elise Kleyn, MD, who is honorary consultant

dermatologist and clinical research fellow at the University of

Manchester in the United Kingdom, told Medscape Psychiatry that the

most important findings from the study were the blunted bilateral

insular cortex responses, the inability to identify intensities of

disgust, and the fact that the observed difference between patients

and controls was specific to disgust. There was no difference between

the groups in terms of processing fear.

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Read the entire article here:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/708372

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