LECTURE 8: EMOTION REGULATION

Key word: “Control”: from the control of emotions to self-control

Introduction (1/4)

The importance of regulation

Biological pathways linking early life stress to later psychopathology:

In girls but not boys, a history of maternal stress during infancy predicts heightened basal afternoon cortisol during childhood, which predicts reduced resting-state amygdala-vmPFC functional connectivity during adolescence. Variability in this functional connectivity, in turn, mediates the association between childhood cortisol and adolescent symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Emotion regulation & emotional disorders:

Anxiety disorders, mood disorders, or borderline personality disorder are defined by dysregulated emotional states (DSM).Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, or autism do not require but include emotion dysregulation (DSM).

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A circumplex model of affect:

There are a large number of secondary emotions: emotions that provide us with more complex feelings about our social worlds and that are more cognitively based. The secondary emotions are derived from the basic emotions but are more cognitive in orientation.

Model of emotional sensitivity versus emotion regulation:

To illustrate the distinction between emotional sensitivity and emotion regulation, the figure above displays the development of an emotional response over time. To simplify matters, the figure only shows a single emotional response with a single maximum strength.

Emotional sensitivity is represented by the entry gradient, or the steepness with which the emotional response reaches its full force. Emotional sensitivity is determined by any variable that influences people’s initial emotional response to the situation, including the nature of the stimuli that people encounter, personal characteristics, and the broader situation.

The offset of the emotional response is depicted in the figure as the exit gradient, or the steepness with which the emotional response returns to a neutral baseline. Variables that influence the exit gradient belong to the process of emotion regulation. Similar to emotional sensitivity, emotion regulation is determined by the characteristics of the person, the stimuli that the person encounters, and the broader situation.

Down-regulation processes aim to achieve a steeper exit gradient, resulting in a speedier return to the baseline. By contrast, maintenance processes aim to achieve a flatter exit gradient, such that the emotional response is maintained over a longer period of time. Up-regulation processes may even increase the magnitude of the emotion response, for instance, when people engage in response exaggeration.

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Labels & taxonomies

Automatic* vs. controlled/voluntary Implicit vs. explicit Intrinsic vs. extrinsicProactive (antecedent) vs. reactive (response)Self-regulation 1, with the emphasis on self (me) vs. self-regulation 2, with the emphasis on regulation

(control)And (!) …Self-regulation (resources account, ego depletion**,

willpower)vs. emotion regulation (process account)

* Automatic ≠ implicit ≠ self-regulation.** Ego depletion: Ego depletion refers to the idea that self-control or willpower draw upon a limited pool of mental

resources that can be used up.[1] When the energy for mental activity is low, self-control is typically impaired, which would be considered a state of ego depletion. In particular, experiencing a state of ego depletion impairs the ability to control oneself later on. A depleting task requiring self-control can have a hindering effect on a subsequent self-control task, even if the tasks are seemingly unrelated. Self-control plays a valuable role in the functioning of the self on both individualistic and interpersonal levels.

Caveat: Emotion regulation is not always adaptive.

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Self-regulation/Self-control (2/4)

Self-regulation (resources account, ego depletion**, willpower) vs. emotion regulation (process account)

The imbalance of motivations contributing to the refractory period of self-control:

According to the elaborated process model, the refractory period of self-control is the product of an imbalance between motivational needs for exploration, leisure, and ‘want-to’ goals after having exerted effort on exploitation, labor, and ‘have-to’ goals. This desire for balance originates from evolutionary pressures motivating organisms to trade-off their desires for exploitation of a known resource against exploration of potentially new resources (ultimate level). This adaptive function translates to a natural tendency to seek a balance between desires for externally rewarded labor versus inherently rewarding leisure (intermediate level). This motivated switching between labor and leisure is evolutionarily adaptive because it allows

an organism not only to mentally engage in a task to attain rewards

and resources, but also to disengage from it and seek activities that

may be even more gratifying. These ultimate and intermediate accounts lay the groundwork for a process account suggesting that initial acts of control lead to shifts in motivation away from ‘have-to’ or ‘ought-to’ goals, and toward ‘want-to’ goals (proximate level). Thus, previous acts of cognitive effort lead people to prefer activities that they deem enjoyable or gratifying over activities that they feel they ought to carry out because they correspond to some obligation or introjected goal.

How self-control exertion at time 1 leads to self-control failure at time 2:

According to the elaborated process model, self-control exertion at time 1

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leads to the motivated switching of task priorities, wherein mental work become increasingly aversive, making mental leisure increasingly attractive. These changing task priorities translate to shifts in motivation away from ‘have-to’ goals and toward ‘want-to’ goals. Because motivation can be decomposed to a mental representation of a goal-state and the emotion (i.e., valence and arousal) that gives this goal-state vigor, shifts in motivational priorities lead to attendant changes in attention and emotion to ‘have-to’ versus ‘want-to’ goals. Thus, self-control exertion at time 1 alters the salience of (and attention to) ‘have-to’ versus ‘want-to’ goals and the intensity of experienced emotions associated with these goals.

Self-regulation: 3 ingredients forming a loop:

“The extent to which people influence, modify or control their own behavior”

1) Standards 2) Monitoring 3) Operating

Limited capacity! Depletion! Implied attention control!Moment of weakness >< irresistible impulses

Underregulation vs. Misregulation

Feedback loop (self-regulation):

Addiction:

A healthy brain: A dysregulated brain:

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This model sums up brain circuits involved with addiction and obesity: reward/saliency, motivation/drive, memory/conditioning and inhibitory control/emotional regulations. Disrupted activity in brain regions involved with inhibitory control/emotional regulation when coupled with enhanced activation of reward/saliency and memory/conditioning leads to enhanced activation of the motivational/drive circuit and the resultant compulsive behaviour (drug taking or food ingestion) when the individual is exposed to the reinforcer (drug or food), conditioned cues or a stressor. Note that circuits that regulate mood as well as internal awareness (interoception) are also likely to modulate the ability to exert control over incentive drives.How to measure it:

with the “check the loop”-approach with specific tasks (often implicit; depletion investigated) with explicit instructions and effects on task/stimuli with self-reports/questionnaires (e.g., reappraisal vs. suppression)

Ego depletion

A classical ego depletion study:

In an experiment, people who forced themselves to eat radishes instead of tempting chocolates subsequently quit faster on unsolvable puzzles than people who had not had to exert self-control over eating.

Stroop performance as a function of self-control and glucose conditions:

The study sought to provide evidence of a causal relationship between glucose and self-control by using direct manipulations of blood glucose available for self-

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regulatory tasks. Participants first completed either a task that required self-control (attention control) or a task that did not require self-control. Participants then drank a lemonade that had been sweetened either with sugar (and hence glucose) or Splenda (a good tasting sugar substitute that does not increase blood glucose). The sugar lemonade shake should restore glucose. It was predicted that participants who controlled their attention during the first task would perform worse on a subsequent stroop task than participants who did not control their attention, but that a glucose drink would attenuate this effect.

The interaction effect of the self-control condition and the glucose condition was significant and consistent with predictions (see Figure 2 for adjusted means). In the placebo condition, attention control participants made more errors. This, however, was not the case in the glucose condition. A glucose drink thus eliminated the tendency for an initial self-control task to impair stroop performance, consistent with the hypothesis that glucose replenishes what has been depleted.

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Disturbed glucose disposal in patients with Major Depression:

19 patients with typical major depressive disorder (MDD), 7 patients with atypical major depression, and 30 men and women of a healthy comparator group were studied using a stepwise glucose clamp procedure. The glucose clamp technique is considered to be the “gold standard” for the assessment of whole-body glucose disposal. Glucose disposal rates were assessed and concentrations of hormones involved in glucose allocation were measured.

Whole-body glucose disposal was reduced in patients with typical and atypical depression. The observed neuroendocrine responses suggest a hyperactive allocation system in typical depression and a hypoactive allocation system in atypical depression.

Prevalence of depression in individuals with impaired glucose metabolism or undiagnosed diabetes:

This study examined the prevalence of depression in impaired glucose metabolism (IGM) and undiagnosed diabetes (UDD) subjects relative to each other and to normal glucose metabolism (NGM) and previously diagnosed type 2 diabetes (PDD) subjects by reviewing the literature and conducting a meta-analysis of studies on this topic.

Results of this meta-analysis show that the risk of depression is similar for normal glucose metabolism (NGM), impaired glucose metabolism (IGM), and undiagnosed diabetes (UDD) subjects. Previously diagnosed type 2 diabetes (PDD) subjects have an increased risk of depression relative to impaired glucose metabolism (IGM) and undiagnosed diabetes (UDD) subjects.

Brain basis

Functional neuroimaging studies of self-regulation:

Functional neuroimaging studies of self-regulation and its failures suggest that self-regulation involves a balance between subcortical brain regions representing the reward, salience and emotional value of a stimulus and prefrontal regions associated with self-control. When this balance tips in favor of subcortical regions, thus bottom-up impulses, either because of a failure to engage prefrontal control areas, thus top-down mechanisms, or because of an especially strong impulse (e.g. the sight and smell of cigarettes for an abstinent smoker), then the likelihood of self-regulatory failure increases.

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Directed-forgetting task and activations:

The working memory directed-forgetting task is composed of 3 trial types: lure, yes, and control trials.

On each trial, 6 words were presented for storage in working memory, following which participants were directed to forget three of these words. A probe word was then presented, and participants had to indicate whether the probe was one of the remaining stored words. The critical feature of this task is that sometimes participants were presented probe items (“lures”) that had to be forgotten from working memory, hence, requiring a negative response. Responses (accuracy and reaction time) to these critical lures were compared with responses to probes that had not been presented in the memory set (“controls”, i.e., probes that were not in memory to begin with).

Significant activation for the lure-control contrast across all participants is seen in:- the left inferior frontal gyrus (LiFG)- the right inferior frontal gyrus (RiFG)- the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)/superior

frontral gyrus (sFG)- the caudate- the precuneus- the left inferior parietal lobule (LiPL)

In this sensitivity map positive and negative values are distributed across the feature-selected network, particularly in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LiFG), showing that the whole network was involved in classification and that regions were not entirely selective for one group.

Areas in blue represent voxels that are higher in low-delayers’ maps. Areas in orange/yellow represent voxels that are higher in high-delayers’ maps. The QD classifier was a bit more accurate in classifying high delayers than low delayers. This was not surprising given that high delayers were more homogeneous as a group in their pattern of activation and, therefore, clustered together more tightly. Considered collectively, these analyses suggest that dimensionality of brain networks and subsequent classification maps provide important information concerning biological predictors of self-control ability.

Self-control in decision-making involves modulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) valuation system:

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The researchers recruited self-reported dieters and used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the neural activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) while the participants made real decisions about which foods to eat. Participants performed three tasks in the scanner. In the first two parts, they rated 50 different food items for taste and health separately. On the basis of these ratings, we selected a reference item for each subject that was rated neutral in both taste and health. In the final part, subjects were asked to choose between each of the foods and the reference item. One decision was randomly selected and implemented at the end of the study. Participants indicated the strength of their decision by using a five-point scale (strong no, no, neutral, yes, and strong yes), which provided a measure of their relative value for eating that food instead of the reference item. Following the previous literature, we refer to this measure as a goal value, which refers to the amount of expected reward associated with consuming the food.

You can see the percentage of the time participants chose the food over the reference item. The self-controllers (SC) group chose not to eat liked-unhealthy food items more often than the bon-self-controllers (NSC) group did. The self-controllers (SC) group also ate liked-healthy food items more often than the non-self-controllers (NSC) group did. Error bars denote standard errors.

Regions of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in which activity correlated with goal values across all participants and regardless of their degree of self-control were found.

Beta values in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) increased with goal values.

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The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) area reflecting goal values in the current study (yellow) overlaps with several areas that have been found to correlate with goal values in previous studies.

On the left you can see correlations between ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) activity and health and taste rating.

Left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)/Brodmann’s area 46 (BA46) showed negative task-related functional connectivity with the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during decisions about unhealthy items by the self-controllers (SC) group.

Conjunction analysis showed voxels that were correlated with goal values and exhibiting significant positive task-related functional connectivity with left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)/Brodmann’s area 46 (BA46).

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This diagram summarizes the results and illustrates the path through which the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) might modulate activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Blue lines represent negative interactions, and red lines represent positive ones.

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Emotion-regulation (3/4)

Proactive (antecedent) vs. reactive (response)

The modal model of emotion:

A process model of emotion regulation (1):

A process model of emotion regulation (2):

According to this model, emotion may be regulated at five points in the emotion generative process: (1) selection of the situation; (2) modification of the situation; (3) deployment of attention; (4) change of cognitions; and (5) modulation of experiential, behavioral, or physiological responses. The first four of these are antecedent focused, the fifth is response focused. The number of response options shown at each of these five points is arbitrary.

We focus on two specific emotion regulation strategies: reappraisal and suppression.

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Hypothetical continuum illustrating relationships among the forms of cognitive control of emotion:

The left and right anchors for the continuum represent the exclusive use of attentional control or cognitive change, respectively, to modulate emotion perception and/or responses. Red and blue text denote strategies for controlled emotion generation and regulation, respectively. This continuum is intended to serve a heuristic function, helping to visualize relationships among control strategies

Extended model of emotion regulation:

The x-axis represents time prior to and subsequent to an emotionally arousing event (time 0) and the y-axis represents the range of regulatory processes from habitual to effortful. Example regulatory processes are indicated with filled circles. Affect-biased attention, in yellow, is an antecedent and reflexive form of emotion regulation involving visual selective attention that tunes the contents of what we ‘see’ in the first place, before we encounter it.

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Classification in terms of targets and functions:

A dual classification in terms of targets and functions was found to be helpful in organising the literature on emotion-regulation strategies.

1. Need-oriented emotion regulation for hedonic needs:including strategies of:a) turning attention away from negative information or towards positive informationb) interpretative biasesc) bodily activities such as binge eating or smoking

2. Goal oriented emotion regulation for goal pursuits:including strategies of:a) distraction through cognitive loadb) cognitive reappraisalc) bodily activities such as expressive suppression, response exaggeration, and venting

3. Person oriented emotion regulation for maintenance of the global personality:including strategies of:a) attentional counter regulationb) cognitive activities such as expressive writing or accessing autobiographical memoriesc) bodily activities such as controlled breathing and progressive muscle relaxation

There is consistent empirical support for each of these strategies, though more work remains necessary to fully understand their underlying processes.

Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ):

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Emotion regulation strategies and psychopathology groups:

Avoidance was positively associated with anxiety, depression, and eating. Rumination was positively associated with

anxiety, depression, eating, and substance. Suppression was positively associated with

anxiety, depression, and eating.

Conversely, problem solving was negatively associated with anxiety, depression and eating. Reappraisal was marginally negatively associated with anxiety, negatively associated with depression, and not associated with eating.

Activations in the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC):

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Activations in lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC):

Above you can see the activations in (a) lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and (b) medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) associated with different forms of cognitive control over emotional responding located dorsal and ventral to z=20 (roughly the median z-coordinate). Each point corresponds to an activation focus representing the results of a contrast isolating regions related to control, shape- and color-coded according to the type of strategy used.

The (c) activation key indicates which shapes correspond to which types of cognitive control. As described in the text, regulation strategies differ in the extent to which they draw upon dorsal prefrontal cortex systems supporting redescription of emotional associations or ventral prefrontal cortex systems supporting alteration of these associations through choice and learning.

As is illustrated in (a) and (b) and listed (by reference number) in (d), reappraisal and placebo recruit dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dorsal MPFC) and both dorsal and ventral lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), whereas extinction and reversal primarily recruit dorsal and ventral medial prefrontal cortex (dorsal and ventral MPFC) and only ventral lateral prefrontal cortex (ventral LPFC). Fewer studies have examined attentional distraction and emotion generation, which recruit ventral lateral prefrontal cortex (ventral LPFC) and both dorsal and ventral medial prefrontal cortex (dorsal and ventral MPFC).

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A functional–anatomical organization of regions supporting the role of mental state attribution (MSA) in emotion:

Mental state attribution (MSA) = one type of social cognitive capacity in processing emotion, i.e., the ability to explain behavior in terms of intentional mental states. The role of it can be considered in three domains: (i) understanding emotion, (ii) learning emotionally significant information and (iii) regulation of emotional responses.

Midline regions [e.g. medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC)] interconnected with emotion centers support representations of internal states and might be coding emotional qualities of mental state attributions (MSAs). By contrast, lateral regions [e.g. the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and temporal parietal junction (TPJ)] interconnected with visuospatial centers support externally generated representations and might be coding cognitive aspects of mental state attribution (MSA).

Closely aligned to the midline section along with the insula (①), posterior regions [e.g. the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), posterior insula (PI) and the medial anterior cingulate cortex (mACC)] support simple ‘first-order’ sensory aspects of mental state attribution (MSA), whereas representational complexity increases as the information is re-represented in more anterior regions [e.g. medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC)].

② Ventral regions [e.g. the amygdala (A), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), striatum (Stri) and ventral MPFC (vMPFC)] are predominantly engaged in stimulus-driven processes, whereas dorsal regions [e.g. dorsal MPFC (dMPFC) and LPFC] support performance monitoring and reflective processes of mental state attribution (MSA).

Schematic of major anatomical sub-divisions in the frontal lobes:

Boundaries and Brodmann areas (BA) are only approximate. Arrows indicate anatomical directions of anterior/rostral (front) versus posterior/caudal (back) and dorsal (up) versus ventral (down).

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Theoretical accounts of the rostro-caudal gradient in the prefrontal cortex (PFC):

a. From a working memory perspective, rostral and caudal prefrontal cortex (rostral and caudal PFC) can be distinguished on the basis of processing domain general versus specific representations. Hierarchical versions of this perspective propose that domain-specific posterior frontal regions can be modulated by the maintenance domain general rules in anterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (anterior DLPFC) and frontal polar cortex (FPC) .

b. Relational complexity proposes a gradient in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) with respect to evaluation of simple stimulus properties, first-order relationships among the properties, and second-order relationships among relationships.

c. The cascade model proposes four levels of control that are distinguished by temporally disparate control signals, either sensory, context, episodic or branching.

d. Abstract representational hierarchy proposes that regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are distinguished by the level of abstraction at which representations compete in a hierarchy of action representations.

Lateralized organization of superior, lateral prefrontal cortex with regard to the hierarchical model of motivation:

The thickness of the arrows corresponds to the hypothesized strength of the relationship. The larger brain is an axial view of the superior surface of the brain viewed from above. The smaller brain is a sagittal view of the lateral surface of the right hemisphere. The location and coverage of the ovals/circles is meant to represent a relative placement rather than a delineation of specific cortex.

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Suppression

An emotional suppression study:

The first trial began when subjects were told that the television screen would be blank for about a minute and that this time should be used to "clear your mind of all thoughts, feelings, and memories". After this I-min baseline period, subjects received the following instructions: "We will now be showing you a short film clip. It is important to us that you watch the film clip carefully, but if you find the film too distressing, just say 'stop.' " These instructions were followed by the neutral film, and after the film there was a I-min postfilm period. Subjects then completed a self-report inventory to assess their emotional reactions during the neutral film.

The second trial began with the same 1 min baseline procedure. Subjects were given the foregoing instructions a second time and then watched the burn film. After the film, there was a 1 min postfilm period, and then subjects completed a self-report inventory to assess their emotional reactions during the burn film.

The third trial began with the same 1 min baseline procedure. Subjects then received one of two sets of instructions, as determined by their random assignment to one of two conditions (no suppression or suppression). For subjects in the no suppression condition (n = 22), the foregoing instructions were repeated. Subjects in the suppression condition (n = 21), however, received the following instructions:

“[…] This time, if you have any feelings as you watch the film clip, please try your best not to let those feelings show. In other words, as you watch the film clip, try to behave in such a way that a person watching you would not know you were feeling anything. Watch the film clip carefully, but please try to behave so that someone watching you would not know that you are feeling anything at all.”

Subjects then watched the amputation film, which was followed by a 1 min postfilm period. After the postfilm period, subjects completed a self-report inventory to assess their emotional reactions during the amputation film.

1 Ratings of disgust expressive behavior (change from prefilm baseline) for amputation film and postfilm periods, with standard errors of the mean.

2 Ratings of overall facial movement [change from prefilm baseline] 1 for amputation film and postfilm periods, with standard errors of the mean.

3 Ratings of face touching [percentage of subjects who touched their face] for amputation film and postfilm periods, with standard errors of the mean.

4 Ratings of body movement [change from prefilm baseline 1] for amputation film and postfilm periods, with standard errors of the mean.

5 Frequency of blinks [change from prefilm baseline 1] for amputation film and postfilm periods, with standard errors of the mean.)

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Emotion self-reports by condition for the amputation film, with standard errors of the mean:

Above you can see second-by-second scores (change from prefilm baseline) for finger pulse amplitude during the amputation film. (Note that the ordinate's scale is such that increased arousal [i.e., decreases in finger pulse amplitude] is upward.)

Above you can see second-by-second scores (change from prefilm baseline) for skin conductance level during theamputation film. (Note that the ordinate's scale is such that increased arousal [i.e., increases in skin conductance level] is upward.)

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Emotion suppression and memory:

All participants viewed emotionally negative and neutral pictures and were asked to rate the pictures according to their subjectively experienced arousal. Participants in the emotion suppression group were instructed to suppress their emotions elicited by the pictures, whereas the others simply watched the pictures. First, participants shortly practiced the picture-viewing task outside the fMRI scanner. After practicing, participants were positioned in the fMRI scanner. Next, they performed the picture-viewing task, while functional MR-images were acquired. Participants did not know that the pictures had to be recalled afterwards and were not instructed to remember the pictures for later free recall.

Subjects in the emotion suppression group remembered fewer negative and neutral pictures.

Participants in the watch group showed more activity in the right hippocampus compared to subjects in the emotion suppression group during encoding of subsequently recalled pictures independent of picture valence.

For exploratory purposes the parameter estimates at the peak voxel in the right hippocampus for negative and neutral pictures separately is showed.

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Reappraisal

Meta-analysis of reappraisal studies:

Formal meta-analysis detected consistent reappraisal-related activations across nine reappraisal studies that used IAPS pictures for negative emotion induction. In an extended sample of 13 studies which included further studies using other negative emotion induction methods similar consistent activations were observed. The only additional frontal activation cluster found in meta-analysis was in the right anterior lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC). (See rightmost slice.)

An fMRI study of cognitive reappraisal:

The event-related emotion regulation task was used in this study. At the start of each trial, an instruction word was presented in the middle of the screen (‘decrease’ or ‘look’; 4 seconds), a picture was presented (negative if instruction was decrease (regulation instruction), negative or neutral if instruction was look (non-regulation instruction; 8 seconds) followed by a rating period (scale from 1–4; 4 seconds) and then the word ‘relax’ (4 seconds). The comparisons from the 8-second picture presentation period are the only trial periods reported here. Following presentation of each picture, participants were prompted to answer the question ‘How negative do you feel?’ on a scale from 1 to 4 (where 1 was labeled ‘weak’ and 4 was labeled ‘strong’).

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Here you see the ratings of self-reported negative affect taken after each trial for conditions in which individuals were asked to look and respond naturally to neutral pictures (Look Neutral), look and respond naturally to negative pictures (Look Negative) and use cognitive reappraisal to decrease their negative affect while looking at negative pictures (Decrease Negative).

On the left the whole brain activations in men and women for the regulation contrast (Decrease Negative > LookNegative) are represented. Midline anterior cingulate activity is shown in panel A. Panels B and C are lateral renderings of the right and left sides of the brain respectively.

There’s greater left amygdala activity in men than women for the down-regulation contrast (Look Negative > Decrease Negative). Men show greater down-regulation of left amygdala, as evidenced by greater decreases when using cognitive regulation. Contrast values from this region for the regulation contrast (Look Negative > Decrease Negative) and reactivity contrast (Look Negative > Look Neutral) are shown on the right.

There’s greater ventral striatum activity in women than men for the regulation contrast (Decrease Negative > Look Negative). Contrast values from this region for the regulation contrast (Look Negative > Decrease Negative) and reactivity contrast (Look Negative > Look Neutral) are shown on the right.

Kanske

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Impaired regulation of emotion: neural correlates of reappraisal and distraction in bipolar disorder and unaffected relatives:

Design:

The experimental paradigm confronted participants with 32 emotional, highly arousing (16 negative, 16 positive) and 16 neutral, low arousing images (from the International Affective Picture System, IAPS). They were required to simply view the pictures (view condition) or to downregulate the emotional response by reinterpreting the meaning of the stimuli (reappraisal condition) or by distraction through an arithmetic task (distraction condition). Each picture was presented once in each condition (except for neutral images, which were not presented in the reappraisal condition) yielding 128 pseudorandomly presented trials. Instructions regarding the condition were displayed after an initial emotion induction phase (1 s) as a semi-transparent overlay on the images. The regulation phase (6 s) was followed by a rating of participants’ current emotional state on a nine-point scale using the Self-Assessment Manikins ranging from unpleasant to pleasant (4 s). Participants were instructed and trained outside the scanner in the application of the emotion regulation strategies. Six additional training trials were presented inside the scanner. In case of any difficulties with the procedure, the practice block was repeated, which resolved all problems as reported by the participants. Participants completed a questionnaire after the experiment that asked for the applied regulation techniques to ensure correct application of the instructions.

Twenty-two euthymic patients with bipolar-I disorder (BD) and 17 unaffected first-degree relatives of BD-I patients (Rel), as well as two groups of healthy gender-, age- and education-matched controls (Con) were included in this study. Euthymia in bipolar disorder is simply defined as a relatively stable mood state, a normal, non-depressed, reasonably positive mood…

Emotional state ratings during the experiment:

The means of self-assessment-Manikin-valence-ratings are displayed for bipolar patients (left), healthy relatives (right) and their respective controls.

Analysis of the emotional state ratings after each trial yielded a significant main effect of emotion in the viewing condition. Planned comparisons revealed that negative and positive trials differed from each other and from neutral trials indicating successful emotion induction. There were no group effects regarding bipolar patients and controls, but regarding relatives and their controls there was a significant interaction of emotion and group indicating less positive ratings of positive stimuli in relatives. Comparing bipolar patients with relatives showed the same pattern.

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Regarding the effects of the different regulation strategies on emotional state, a significant main effect of emotion, a main effect of task, as well as a significant interaction of emotion and task were found. Repeated contrasts regarding the interaction revealed that emotional pictures were rated less negative or positive during distraction and reappraisal as compared with the view condition. There were no group effects regarding bipolar patients and controls, but regarding relatives and their controls there was a significant interaction of emotion and task with group indicating stronger downregulation of positive emotion during reappraisal in controls. There were no differences between bipolar patients and relatives.

Effects on the amygdala:

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An increased amygdala activation during reappraisal was found for bipolar patients compared with their respective controls, as well as % signal change in the left amygdala.

b An increased amygdala activation during reappraisal was found for relatives of bipolar patients, compared with their respective controls, too, as well as % signal change in the left amygdala.

c The difference in % signal change between the reappraisal and view conditions correlated negatively

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with habitual reappraisal use in the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ).

d Habitual reappraisal use in the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) was also decreased in bipolar patients and relatives.

Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) regions of reversed functional connectivity to the left amygdala in bipolar patients (a) and healthy relatives (b) compared with their respective controls:

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Conclusions (4/4)

Functional neuroimaging studies of self-regulation:

Don’t forget following figure. The explanation of it was given on page 7.

Neural model of emotion regulation illustrating neural systems implicated in voluntary and automatic subprocesses of emotion regulation:

Feedforward pathway: medial prefrontal cortical system, including the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the subgenual and rostral anterior cingulate gyrus (subgenual and rostral ACG), the hippocampus and parahippocampus and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (MdPFC)

Feedback pathway: lateral prefrontal cortical system, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC)

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