Impaired emotion recognition is linked to alexithymia in heroin addicts

Several investigations document altered emotion processing in opiate addiction. Nevertheless, the origin of this phenomenon remains unclear. Here we examined the role of alexithymia in the ability (i.e., number of errors - accuracy and reaction times - RTs) of thirty-one heroin addicts and thirty-one healthy controls to detect several affective expressions. Results show generally lower accuracy and higher RTs in the recognition of facial expressions of emotions for patients, compared to controls. The hierarchical multivariate regression analysis shows that alexithymia might be responsible of the between groups difference with respect to the RTs in emotion detection. Overall, we provide new insights in the clinical interpretation of affective deficits in heroin addicts suggesting a role of alexithymia in their ability to recognize emotions.