Personality traits and emotional patterns in irritable bowel syndrome

Table 2 Personality and irritable bowel syndrome

-Several personality traits and constructs, such as neuroticism, conscientiousness, and alexithymia, are closely associated with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

-Negative emotionality, a feature of neuroticism, can increase colonic motility; high levels of neuroticism, anxiety sensitivity, trait worry, and increased vigilance toward visceral sensations are common features of IBS patients and reliable predictors of IBS symptoms.

-The relationship between complaint severity reports and conscientiousness was modified by genetic variation in catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) which is involved in mediating sympathetic and dopaminergic tone through catecholamines degradation, thus participating in the complex affective, personality, and cognitive networks also involved in IBS pathophysiology and clinical expression.

-Potential mechanisms by which alexithymia could affect IBS severity include the core features of this personality construct, such as the tendency to focus on, intensify, and misinterpret bodily sensations and somatic sensations triggered by states of emotional arousal; moreover, higher pain intensity to rectal distension in alexithymic IBS patients than in non-alexithymic controls has been documented.