AccScience Publishing / JCBP / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/JCBP026340046
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Altered neural synchrony during semantic processing of nonverbal emotional expressions in individuals with alexithymia

Xianrui Li1,2,3 ,  Jianli Zhu4 ,  Qian Luo5 ,  Xueyang Wang2,3 ,  Dongtao Wei2,3 ,  Jiang Qiu2,3*
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1 Department of Clinical Psychology, Shandong Daizhuang Hospital, Jining, Shandong , China
2 Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing , China
3 Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing , China
4 Nanlang Outpatient Department, The Zhongshan Third People’s Hospital, Zhongshan, Guangdong , China
5 College of Mechanical Engineering, Chongqing Vocational and Technical University of Mechatronics, Chongqing , China
JCBP, 026340046 https://doi.org/10.36922/JCBP026340046
Received: 19 August 2026 | Revised: 23 September 2026 | Accepted: 9 October 2026 | Published online: 27 October 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Alexithymia is a subclinical personality trait characterized by difficulty in identifying and describing feelings and has been linked to deficits in processing nonverbal emotional expressions. However, the neural mechanisms through which alexithymia affects the semantic processing of such expressions remain unclear. To address this gap, 57 participants were recruited and categorized into high alexithymia (HA; n = 29) and low alexithymia (LA; n = 28) groups based on their scores on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. We utilized task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess group differences in inter-subject neural synchrony during the semantic processing of nonverbal emotional expressions. The results revealed significantly greater inter-subject correlation (ISC) in the HA group than in the LA group, indicating enhanced neural synchrony among individuals with HA. Specifically, increased ISC was observed in the cuneus and the orbital part of the inferior frontal gyrus. Further analyses demonstrated that the supramarginal gyrus and the temporal pole of the middle temporal gyrus may be involved in the semantic processing of nonverbal emotional expressions. These findings provide evidence for altered neural synchrony during the semantic processing of nonverbal emotional expressions in individuals with HA and offer new insights into the neural mechanisms underlying individual differences in the processing of nonverbal emotional expressions.

Keywords
Alexithymia
Nonverbal emotional expressions
Emotion concept
Inter-subject correlations
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Funding
This research was supported by the Shandong Provincial Medical and Health Science and Technology Project (202523010849), the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2026QC0239), and the National Social Science Fund of China (22VRC191).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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Journal of Clinical and Basic Psychosomatics, Electronic ISSN: 2972-4414 Print ISSN: 3060-8562, Published by AccScience Publishing
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