Background: Atypical eye gaze on emotional faces is a core feature of alexithymia. The inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is considered to be the neurophysiological basis of alexithymia-related emotional face fixation. Our aim was to examine whether anodal high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) administered to the right (r)IFG would facilitate eye gaze of emotional faces in alexithymia individuals.
Method: Forty individuals with alexithymia were equally assigned to anodal or sham HD-tDCS of the rIFG according to the principle of randomization. The individuals then completed a free-viewing eye tracking task (including happy, sad, and neutral faces) before and after 5 consecutive days of stimulation (twice a day).
Results: The results showed that twice a day anodal HD-tDCS of the rIFG significantly increased the fixation time and fixation count of the eye area on happy and neutral faces, but there was no significant effect on sad faces. According to the temporal-course analysis, after the intervention, the fixation time on neutral faces increased significantly at almost all time points of the eye tracking task. For happy faces, the improvement was demonstrated between 500 and 1000 ms and between 2500 and 3500 ms. For sad faces, the fixation time improved but not significantly.
Conclusions: Applying high-dose anodal HD-tDCS to the rIFG selectively facilitated eye gaze in the eye area of neutral and happy faces in individuals with alexithymia, which may improve their face processing patterns.
Keywords: Alexithymia; Eye gaze; Eye-tracking; High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation; Inferior frontal gyrus.
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