The late positive potential: a neurophysiological marker for emotion regulation in children

Development of emotion processing and regulation: Insights from event-related potentials and implications for internalizing disorders

Emotionally-salient stimuli receive selective attention and elicit complex neural responses that evolve considerably across development. Event-related potentials (ERPs) optimally capture the dynamics of emotion processing and regulation, with sensitivity to detect changes in magnitude, latency, and maximal location across development. In this selective qualitative review, we summarize evidence of developmental changes in neural reactivity to emotional stimuli and modulation of neural responses during emotion regulation indexed by ERPs across infancy, childhood, and adolescence. The cumulative ERP literature suggests the transition from childhood to adulthood is characterized by a gradual decrease in neural reactivity to emotional stimuli and increased efficiency in attentional allocation towards emotional stimuli. Some studies show sensitivity to emotional stimuli peaks in adolescence, but the evidence is mixed. While both early (<300 ms) and late (>300 ms) ERPs demonstrate sensitivity to emotional stimuli, emotional modulation is more consistently observed in relatively later ERPs across development. The literature additionally shows improvements in regulation abilities across development, though ERP research on developmental changes in emotion regulation is still relatively limited, highlighting a critical direction for future research. Finally, we briefly discuss changes in emotion-related ERPs relevant to the emergence of depression and anxiety. Findings from this review indicate that ERPs provide abundant information about the development of emotion processing and regulation, with potential clinical utility for detecting early-emerging vulnerabilities for internalizing forms of psychopathology.

The development of neural responses to emotional faces: A review of evidence from event-related potentials during early and middle childhood

Facial emotion processing (FEP) develops throughout childhood and provides crucial social information necessary for the interpretation and prediction of others' behaviour. This systematic review, which includes a meta-regression component, sought to explore the development of FEP event-related potentials (P100, N170, and late positive potential [LPP]) in children aged three to twelve years. Thirty-four studies, representing data from 1511 children, were included in the review. The combination of meta-regression and systematic review suggest that P100 amplitude decreases with increasing age in response to emotional facial stimuli. P100 latency may show a gradual decrease around the age of ten. In terms of the N170, it is suggested that amplitude follows a non-linear trend with age, and latency may decrease in early childhood before plateauing during middle childhood. Of note, review of the literature indicates that substantial methodological differences and high levels of heterogeneity exist. We suggest future research considers these results within the context of emotion-specific development, whilst also acknowledging how this may relate to individual social functioning skills across early-to-middle childhood.

Emotion Regulation Failures Are Preceded by Local Increases in Sleep-like Activity

Emotion self-regulation relies both on cognitive and behavioral strategies implemented to modulate the subjective experience and/or the behavioral expression of a given emotion. Although it is known that a network encompassing fronto-cingulate and parietal brain areas is engaged during successful emotion regulation, the functional mechanisms underlying failures in emotion suppression (ES) are still unclear. In order to investigate this issue, we analyzed video and high-density EEG recordings of 20 healthy adult participants during an ES and a free expression task performed on two consecutive days. Changes in facial expression during ES, but not free expression, were preceded by local increases in sleep-like activity (1-4 Hz) in brain areas responsible for emotional suppression, including bilateral anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex, and in right middle/inferior frontal gyrus (p < .05, corrected). Moreover, shorter sleep duration the night before the ES experiment correlated with the number of behavioral errors (p = .03) and tended to be associated with higher frontal sleep-like activity during ES failures (p = .09). These results indicate that local sleep-like activity may represent the cause of ES failures in humans and may offer a functional explanation for previous observations linking lack of sleep, changes in frontal activity, and emotional dysregulation.

The Immediate and Lasting Effect of Emotion Regulation in Adolescents: An ERP Study

The immediate effect is an important index of the outcomes of emotion regulation. However, in daily life, whether the effect of emotion regulation lasts and the lasting mechanism have been examined less. The present research focused on the relationships between the immediate and lasting effect of the emotion regulation of adolescents. Electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded from 51 adolescents (31 boys and 20 girls, Mage = 12.82) during online emotion regulation using the Reactivity and Regulation-Image Task (phase 1) and re-presentation of emotional stimuli after a period of time (phase 2). Event-related potentials (ERPs) related to emotion regulation, such as N2, P3, and the late positive potential (LPP), were examined in the two phases. The results showed that: (1) In both of the two phases, in negative emotion conditions, the amplitudes of P3 and LPP 300-600 of no-regulation conditions were significantly higher than those in reappraisal conditions. However, there was no significant difference under neutral conditions; (2) The amplitudes of P3, N2, and LPP 300-600 during emotion regulation in phase 1 positively predicted the amplitudes of P3, N2, and LPP300-600 in phase 2 in different experimental conditions. Results from the regression analysis implied that the immediate effect of online emotion regulation may predict the lasting effect when adolescents face the same emotions again. In addition, our findings provide neurological evidence that the use of cognitive reappraisal could effectively help adolescents to reduce the recruitment of cognitive resources when they regulate negative emotions and when they face those negative emotions again.

A Review of the Evidence Base for Psychosocial Interventions for the Treatment of Emotion Dysregulation in Children and Adolescents

Many children with a range of psychiatric diagnoses manifest impaired levels of emotion dysregulation (ED). Over the past decade, there has been increasing examination of psychosocial interventions for ED. We found preliminary evidence of positive effects for a wide range of psychosocial treatments that were associated with improvements in emotion recognition, emotional reactivity, and emotion regulation. More studies are needed because results are limited by the small number of controlled trials, heavy reliance on parent ratings, and heterogeneity of the samples.

Neurophysiological patterns associated with blunted emotional face processing and withdrawal tendencies in young children exposed to intimate partner violence

Studies linking child maltreatment to abnormal neurophysiological responses to emotional stimuli and mental health impairment have not specifically explored these patterns in young children exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV). The present study examined two neurophysiological indicators, resting-state electroencephalography and an emotion event-related potential (ERP) in 21 IPV exposed and 30 nonexposed children ages 4-6 years recruited from the community and domestic violence shelters. Frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) was assessed while at rest. FAA is often associated with avoidant/withdrawn behavior and increased risk of IPV-related mental health conditions (e.g., depression). Additionally, the late positive potential (LPP) ERP component, reflecting motivated attention, was acquired in the context of an age-appropriate affective oddball paradigm with low probability animal pictures as targets and human facial expressions (angry, happy, neutral) as distracters. Results demonstrated that IPV-exposed children, compared with nonexposed children, exhibited lower left FAA during resting state and reduced LPPs to oddball targets and affective faces relative to neutral faces in the oddball task. Together, these results suggest neural patterns associated with a blunted response to emotional stimuli and withdrawal tendencies, respectively, in young children exposed to IPV. Implications for emotional socialization in this vulnerable population are discussed.

Associations between brain and behavioral processing of facial expressions of emotion and sensory reactivity in young children

The ability to decode and accurately identify information from facial emotions may advantage young children socially. This capacity to decode emotional information may likewise be influenced by individual differences in children's temperament. This study investigated whether sensory reactivity and perceptual awareness, two dimensions of temperament, as well as children's ability to accurately label emotions relates to the neural processing of emotional content in faces. Event related potentials (ERPs) of 4 to 6 year-old children (N  = 119) were elicited from static displays of anger, happy, fearful, sad, and neutral emotion faces. Children, as a group, exhibited differential early (N290) and mid-latency (P400) event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to facial expressions of emotion. Individual differences in children's sensory reactivity were associated with enhanced P400 amplitudes to neutral, sad, and fearful faces. In a separate task, children were asked to provide an emotional label for the same images. Interestingly, children less accurately labeled the same neutral, sad, and fearful faces, suggesting that, contrary to previous work showing enhanced attentional processing to threatening cues (i.e., fear), children higher in sensory reactivity may deploy more attentional resources when decoding ambiguous emotional cues.

The modulation of attentional deployment on regret: an event-related potential study

Adopting a sequential risk-taking task, this study explored the modulation of attentional deployment on regret. Attentional deployment was manipulated during outcome feedback of the task by highlighting different parts to induce participants to focus on collected gains (GF context) or missed chances (MF context). The control context without attentional deployment manipulation was also set. Behaviorally, compared to the control context, participants felt less regret in the GF context but more regret in the MF context. Event-related potential results showed that the GF context elicited stronger reward positivity and late positive potential (LPP) than the control context. Furthermore, openness (NEO Five-Factor Inventory) negatively predicted the amplitude of LPP in the GF context. Source localization indicated that the superior frontal gyrus showed stronger activation in the GF context than in the control context during the time window of LPP. These results suggested that focusing on collected gains was an effective way to repress regret and that the LPP component played a key role in this process.

Does gaze direction of fearful faces facilitate the processing of threat? An ERP study of spatial precuing effects

Eye gaze is very important for attentional orienting in social life. By adopting the event-related potential (ERP) technique, we explored whether attentional orienting of eye gaze is modulated by emotional congruency between facial expressions and the targets in a spatial cuing task. Faces with different emotional expressions (fearful/angry/happy/neutral) directing their eye gaze to the left or right were used as cues, indicating the possible location of subsequent targets. Targets were line drawings of animals, which could be either threatening or neutral. Participants indicated by choice responses whether the animal would fit inside a shoebox in real life or not. Reaction times to targets were faster after valid compared with invalid cues, showing the typical eye gaze cuing effect. Analyses of the late positive potential (LPP) elicited by targets revealed a significant modulation of the gaze cuing effect by emotional congruency. Threatening targets elicited larger LPPs when validly cued by gaze in faces with negative (fearful and angry) expressions. Similarly, neutral targets showed larger LPPs when validly cued by faces with neutral expressions. Such effects were not present after happy face cues. Source localization in the LPP time window revealed that for threatening targets, the activity of right medial frontal gyrus could be related to a larger gaze-orienting effect for the fearful than the angry condition. Our findings provide electrophysiological evidence for the modulation of gaze cuing effects by emotional congruency.

Biological signatures of emotion regulation flexibility in children: Parenting context and links with child adjustment

Emotion regulation (ER) is a key facet of positive adjustment throughout the lifespan. Recent theoretical and empirical innovations suggest that current methods for assessing ER are limited, because they measure discrete strategy use instead of ER flexibility and are insensitive to ecologically valid social contexts that influence ER. This is particularly important for studying the impact of parenting on ER development during childhood. The current study (N = 93; 47 females; M_age = 6.98, SD = 1.12) examined child ER flexibility during a directed reappraisal task (DRT) with two parenting contexts: passive parent presence or active scaffolding. Two biological signatures of ER flexibility were measured: respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an index of physiological flexibility; and the late positive potential (LPP), an index of neurocognitive flexibility. Emotion regulation behavior was observed during a frustrating wait, and parents reported on child ER and adjustment. Greater ER flexibility indexed via the LPP and RSA both predicted observed ER during the frustrating wait, but only RSA predicted parent-reported trait ER and fewer adjustment problems. Emotion regulation flexibility indexed by the LPP was bolstered by parent presence and scaffolding of child ER during the DRT, but RSA measures were not sensitive to parenting context. Taken together, the results provide converging evidence for the conceptualization of ER in terms of physiological and neurocognitive flexibility in childhood. Furthermore, among school-aged children, while physiological flexibility broadly predicted parent-reported child adjustment, neurocognitive flexibility may be context-sensitive and predictive of concurrent observed ER.

Trial by trial EEG based BCI for distress versus non distress classification in individuals with ASD

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is often accompanied by impaired emotion regulation (ER). There has been increasing emphasis on developing evidence-based approaches to improve ER in ASD. Electroencephalography (EEG) has shown success in reducing ASD symptoms when used in neurofeedback-based interventions. Also, certain EEG components are associated with ER. Our overarching goal is to develop a technology that will use EEG to monitor real-time changes in ER and perform intervention based on these changes. As a first step, an EEG-based brain computer interface that is based on an Affective Posner task was developed to identify patterns associated with ER on a single trial basis, and EEG data collected from 21 individuals with ASD. Accordingly, our aim in this study is to investigate EEG features that could differentiate between distress and non-distress conditions. Specifically, we investigate if the EEG time-locked to the visual feedback presentation could be used to classify between WIN (non-distress) and LOSE (distress) conditions in a game with deception. Results showed that the extracted EEG features could differentiate between WIN and LOSE conditions (average accuracy of 81%), LOSE and rest-EEG conditions (average accuracy 94.8%), and WIN and rest-EEG conditions (average accuracy 94.9%).

The Late Positive Potential as a Reliable Neural Marker of Cognitive Reappraisal in Children and Youth: A Brief Review of the Research Literature

The mental health of young people is a growing public health concern. With socio-emotional difficulties in youth often resulting in psychiatric disorders later in life and most with mental health conditions rather stabilizing in time, it is essential to support healthy socio-emotional development. With a comprehensive definition of mental health, since emotion regulation (ER) plays a critical role in prevention, it becomes imperative to better understand how children effectively manage their emotions from an early age. Determining effective use of ER skills relies on adequate measurements. Typical methods of data collection in children present consistent shortcomings. This review addresses research findings considering the suitability of the late positive potential measured through electroencephalogram as a neural indicator of ER in children and youth. There is growing evidence, as reported in this review, that indicates that the late positive potential may be a reliable neural indicator of children's cognitive reappraisal abilities more specifically. Results generally suggest that the late positive potential amplitudes are sensitive to directed reappraisal in children. However, given the scant research, questions remain regarding developmental trends, methodology, interindividual variability, reappraisal of various stimuli, and how the late positive potential may relate to more traditional measures of ER. Directions for future research are provided, which are expected to address unanswered research questions and fill literature gaps. Taken together, the findings reviewed indicate that the late positive potential is generally sensitive to directed cognitive reappraisal in children and that there is promise of establishing this neural marker as an indicator of ER.

Emotion processing in children who do and do not stutter: An ERP study of electrocortical reactivity and regulation to peer facial expressions

PURPOSE

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the neural correlates of emotion processing in 5- to 8-year-old children who do and do not stutter.

METHODS

Participants were presented with an audio contextual cue followed by images of threatening (angry/fearful) and neutral facial expressions from similarly aged peers. Three conditions differed in audio-image pairing: neutral context-neutral expression (neutral condition), negative context-threatening expression (threat condition), and reappraisal context-threatening expression (reappraisal condition). These conditions reflected social stimuli that are ecologically valid to the everyday life of children.

RESULTS

P100, N170, and late positive potential (LPP) ERP components were elicited over parietal and occipital electrodes. The threat condition elicited an increased LPP mean amplitude compared to the neutral condition across our participants, suggesting increased emotional reactivity to threatening facial expressions. In addition, LPP amplitude decreased during the reappraisal condition- evidence of emotion regulation. No group differences were observed in the mean amplitude of ERP components between children who do and do not stutter. Furthermore, dimensions of childhood temperament and stuttering severity were not strongly correlated with LPP elicitation.

CONCLUSION

These findings are suggestive that, at this young age, children who stutter exhibit typical brain activation underlying emotional reactivity and regulation to social threat from peer facial expressions.

The Effects of Emotional Working Memory Training on Trait Anxiety

Background

Trait anxiety is a pervasive tendency to attend to and experience fears and worries to a disproportionate degree, across various situations. Decreased vulnerability to trait anxiety has been linked to having higher working memory capacity and better emotion regulation; however, the relationship between these factors has not been well-established.

Objective

This study sought to determine if participants who undergo emotional working memory training will have significantly lower trait anxiety post-training. The study also sought to determine if emotion regulation mediated the relationship between working memory training and trait anxiety.

Method

An experimental group comprising of 49 participants underwent 20 days of computerized emotional working memory training, which involved viewing a continuous stream of emotionally-charged content on a grid, and then remembering the location and color of items presented on the grid. The control group comprised of 51 participants.

Results

Participants of the experimental group had significantly lower trait anxiety compared to controls, post-training. Subsequent mediation analysis determined that working memory training capacity gains were significantly related to anxiety reduction as measured by form Y2 of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-Y2). Emotion regulation, as measured by the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), was found not to mediate between working memory capacity gains and trait anxiety reduction.

Conclusion

Working memory capacity gains and reductions in levels of trait anxiety were observed following emotional working memory training. The study may therefore be useful in informing interventions targeted at improving working memory capacity, and reducing levels of trait anxiety. Moreover, it proposes for future research to further look into the mediating role of emotion regulation via the development or utilization of more comprehensive measures of emotion regulation.

Emotion context insensitivity in depression: Toward an integrated and contextualized approach

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by pervasive mood disturbance as well as deficits in emotional processing, reactivity, and regulation. There is accumulating evidence that MDD is characterized by emotional patterns consistent with environmental disengagement, as reflected in attenuated positive and negative emotional reactivity, consistent with Emotion Context Insensitivity (ECI) theory. However, MDD individuals vary considerably in the extent to which they exhibit specific alterations in patterns of emotional responding. Emotions are complex, multicomponent processes that invoke responses across multiple functional domains and levels of analysis, including subjective experience, behavior, autonomic regulation, cognition, and neural processing. In this article, I review the current state of the literature on emotional responding and MDD from the lens of ECI. I focus on the importance of assessing emotional indices from multiple levels of analysis across development and contexts. I also discuss methodological and measurement issues that may contribute to inconsistent findings. In particular, I emphasize how psychophysiological measures can help elucidate emotional processes that underlie the pathophysiology of MDD as part of an integrated and contextualized approach.

Trustworthiness and electrocortical processing of emotionally ambiguous faces in student police officers

Perceptions of emotional facial expressions and trustworthiness of others guides behavior and has considerable implications for individuals who work in fields that require rapid decision making, such as law enforcement. This is particularly complicated for more ambiguous expressions, such as 'neutral' faces. We examined behavioral and electrocortical responses to facial expressions in 22 student police officers (18 males; 23.2 ± 3.63 years). Participants completed an emotional face appraisal task that involved viewing three expressions (fearful, neutral, happy) and were asked to identify the emotion and rate the trustworthiness of each face. The late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential that tracks emotional intensity and/or salience of a stimulus, was measured during the task. Overall, participants rated neutral faces similarly to fearful faces and responded fastest to these expressions. Neutral faces also elicited a robust late LPP response that did not differ from LPP to fearful or happy faces, and there was substantial individual variation in trustworthiness ratings for neutral faces. Together, 'neutral' facial expressions elicited similar trustworthiness ratings to negatively-valenced stimuli. Brain and behavioral responses to neutral faces also varied across student officers; thus, encounters with ambiguous faces in the field may promote increased perceived threat in some officers, which may have real-world consequences (e.g., decision to shoot, risk of psychopathology).

Attentional Bias Deficits in Adolescent Suicide Attempters During an Emotional Stroop Task: An ERP Study

There is increasing evidence that, in adolescence, attentional bias plays a critical role in the vulnerability for suicidal behaviour. No studies to date have investigated the neurophysiological correlates of attentional bias in adolescent suicidality. The present study uses event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate such processing in inpatient adolescents admitted for an acute suicide crisis using an Emotional Stroop Task (EST). In this task, participants are asked to name the colour of words varying in emotional valence (positive, negative, neutral, suicide-related). Suicidal individuals are hypothesised to be more preoccupied by the context of the suicide-related stimuli, which may interfere with their ability to perform the colour naming task. Seventeen adolescents with acute suicidal behaviour and 17 age- and gender-matched healthy controls performed an EST while ERPs were recorded. Suicide attempters showed increased reaction times to suicide-related words compared to other emotion categories, while the controls did not. The amplitude of the early posterior negativity (EPN) was not significantly different across groups or emotional valence. A double peak P3 (early-P3 and late-P3) was observed in both groups. Both the early- and late-P3 were significantly reduced in amplitude in the suicide attempter group compared to the control group, regardless of emotional valence. The late-P3 latency was also significantly delayed in the suicide attempters compared to controls. The behavioural findings support the attentional bias theories of suicide attempters and extend these findings to adolescents. Furthermore, large early- and late-P3 provide evidence that cognitive strategies employed by two groups did markedly differ.

Sensory processing and cortisol at age 4 years: Procedural pain-related stress in children born very preterm

Children born preterm display altered sensory processing, which may manifest as hyper- and/or hypo-sensitivity to sensory information. In this vulnerable population, exposure to neonatal pain-related stress is associated with altered stress regulation, as indexed by alterations in cortisol levels. It is unknown whether sensory processing behaviors are also affected by early life adversity, and whether dysregulated cortisol is related to sensory processing problems in preterm children. We examined relationships between neonatal pain-related stress, sensory processing profiles and cortisol levels at age 4 years, and whether pathways were sex-specific. In a longitudinal prospective cohort study, N = 146 infants born 24-32 weeks gestational age were recruited from BC Women's Hospital, Vancouver, BC, Canada; neonatal factors were collected from daily chart review. At age 4 years, saliva to assay cortisol was collected three times across cognitive assessment (pre-test, during, end) and parents completed the Short Sensory Profile questionnaire. Using generalized linear modeling, independent of other neonatal factors, higher number of invasive procedures (pain/stress) was associated with more sensory processing problems (total, hypo- and hyper-sensitivity) for girls only. After accounting for neonatal factors, greater cortisol output across the assessment was associated with more total sensory processing problems in girls only, and hypersensitivity to sensory input in both boys and girls. Findings suggest that in children born very preterm, how a child responds to sensory input and cortisol reactivity to stress are related but may have different precursors. Girls may be somewhat more susceptible to neonatal pain-related stress exposure in relation to sensory processing at preschool age.

Neural time course of pain observation in infancy

Perception of pain in others is of great evolutionary significance for the development of human empathy. However, infants' sensitivity to others' painful experiences has not been investigated so far. Here, we explored the neural time course of infants' processing of others' pain by measuring event-related brain potentials (ERPs) while 6-month-old infants observed a painful tactile stimulation directed towards the eye and a neutral tactile stimulation on the eyebrow. We analyzed both the Negative Central (Nc) and the later Late Positive Potential (LPP) ERP components, indexing respectively attention allocation and cognitive evaluation of perceptual stimuli. Results showed that observing painful touch elicits a mid-latency Nc (300-500 ms) over the right fronto-central site, which is greater in amplitude as compared to neutral touch. A divergent activity was also visible in the centro-parietal early (550-750 ms) and late (800-1000 ms) LPP, showing increased amplitudes in response to neutral compared to painful touch. The cognitive evaluation of painful stimuli, reflected by the LPP, might thus not be fully developed at 6 months of age, as adults typically show a larger LPP in response to painful as compared to neutral stimuli. Overall, infants show early attentional attuning to others' pain. This early sensitivity to others' painful tactile experiences might form a prerequisite for the development of human empathy.

Emotion regulation in adolescents: Influences of internal representations of relationships - An ERP study

Emotion regulation (ER) strategies can decrease the intensity or modify the experience of emotions. Deficits in emotion regulation are implicated in a wide range of psychopathologies. It is argued that interpersonal, socio-cognitive, and developmental variables play an important role in ER. This is the first study to explore the contribution of individual differences in internal representations of relationships (IRR) to neural correlates of ER in a sample of adolescents. Event related potentials of 53 adolescents (12 to 17 years old) were collected while performing an ER task. IRR was assessed with the social cognition and object relations scale (SCORS-G; Westen, 1995) coding of narratives from interviews. Results show that individual differences in IRR significantly predicted the modulation of emotional responses by expressive suppression in adolescents, accounting for 48% of the variance of changes in occipital late positive potentials (LPP). Thus, it appears that IRR are implicated in an individual's ability to regulate emotions. The clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Differences in frontal EEG asymmetry during emotion regulation between high and low mindfulness adolescents

The present study examined the differences in frontal EEG asymmetry during emotion regulation between participants who had different levels of trait mindfulness. EEG recordings were taken from 23 high mindfulness adolescents (M_age = 12.34) and 22 low mindfulness adolescents (M_age = 12.53) during the Reactivity and Regulation-Image Task. The results showed that (1) high mindfulness adolescents had greater left (relative to right) asymmetry than low mindfulness adolescents in down-regulation and up-regulation conditions; however, there was no significant difference in the non-regulation condition; (2) In the up-regulating condition, adolescents showed greater right (relative to left) asymmetry for negative stimuli compared to neutral stimuli; however, there was no significant difference in down-regulation and non-regulation conditions. The results provide neurological evidence that trait mindfulness was highly related to the regulation of emotions and affects how emotions are processed.

The effects of imaginary eating on visual food cue reactivity: An event-related potential study

Previous research has demonstrated that imagining consumption of a specific type of food helps individuals to consume less of that food. The present event-related potential study aimed at investigating the underlying neural correlates of this appetite-reducing strategy. A total of 86 women (mean age = 23.65 years) were randomly assigned to one of three imagination conditions. In each condition, they listened to a guided imagery script that either described the eating of 30 colorful button-shaped chocolates (M&Ms), the sorting of 30 M&Ms by color, or the sorting of 30 marbles by color. Subsequently to the imagery task, the participants were presented with images of M&Ms and marbles while their electroencephalogram and craving ratings were recorded. The results showed that imaginary eating did not reduce the appetitive value of M&M pictures. The M&M sorting group reported enhanced craving and showed increased late positivity toward M&M pictures (300-600 ms after picture onset) compared to the two other groups. The present findings indicate that the imagined handling of food increases food cue reactivity and that imaginary eating is not a reliable method to reduce appetite.

Emotional reactivity and regulation in 5- to 8-year-old children: An ERP study of own-age face processing

The school-age years is a period of increasing social interaction with peers and development of emotion regulation in facilitating that interaction. This study was an investigation of the neural correlates of emotional reactivity and reappraisal in typically developing school-age children elicited by threatening facial expressions of same-aged peers. This experimental paradigm is novel in eliciting event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to social stimuli that are ecologically valid to the everyday life of children. ERPs of 5- to 8-year-old children (N = 41, 18 females) were elicited by threatening (i.e., angry and fearful) and neutral child facial expressions, which were preceded by audio contextual cues. Three conditions differed in audio-image pairing: neutral context-neutral expression (neutral condition), negative context-threatening expression (threat condition), and reappraisal context-threatening expression (reappraisal condition). In addition, parental reporting of childhood temperament was collected to determine if elicited ERP morphologies were associated with temperamental dimensions of negative affect, extraversion, and effortful control. Elicitation of the P100 and N170 did not largely differ between conditions; however, amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP), a marker of heightened emotional reactivity and attention, was greater for threatening faces relative to neutral faces. During the reappraisal condition, no differences in ERP activity was observed compared to the threat condition. Neural substrates of emotional reactivity to social threat from peers were evident; however, the lack of ERP modulation facilitating reappraisal and the lack of strong associations between ERP morphology and temperamental dimensions is indicative of heterogeneity in LPP elicitation underlying emotion regulation in children.

Study protocol for a randomised-controlled study on emotion regulation training for adolescents with major depression: the KONNI study

INTRODUCTION

Major depression (MD) often has its onset during adolescence and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. One important factor for the development and maintenance of adolescent MD are disturbances in emotion regulation and the underlying neural processes. Cognitive reappraisal (CR) is a particular adaptive emotion regulation strategy. Previously, it has been shown in healthy adults that a task-based training in CR is efficient to reduce negative affect, and that these effects translate into everyday life.This randomised controlled trial examines for the first time whether a task-based training in CR proves effective in MD adolescents. Specifically, we will investigate whether the CR training improves the ability to downregulate negative affect in MD individuals as assessed by behavioural and neurobiological indices, and whether training effects generalise outside the laboratory.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

Adolescents with MD will be randomly allocated to a group that either receives a task-based training in CR or a control training. Both involve four training sessions over a time period of 2 weeks. In the CR training, participants will be instructed to downregulate negative affective responses to negative pictures via CR, while the control training involves picture viewing. During the training sessions, the Late Positive Potential, gaze fixations on negative picture aspects and affective responses to pictures will be collected. Before and after the training programmes, and at a 2-week follow-up, overall negative and positive affect, rumination and perceived stress will be assessed as primary outcomes. Analyses of variance will be conducted to test the effectiveness of the CR training with regard to both primary outcomes and task-based behavioural and neurobiological parameters.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Medical Faculty of the LMU Munich, Germany. The results will be published in peer-reviewed journals and disseminated through conferences, social media and public events.

TRIAL REGISTRATION DETAILS

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03957850, registered 21^st May 2019; URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03957850.

Brain computer interface based applications for training and rehabilitation of students with neurodevelopmental disorders. A literature review

The aim of this article is to explore a paradigm shift on Brain Computer Interface (BCI) research, as well as on intervention best practices for training and rehabilitation of students with neurodevelopmental disorders. Recent studies indicate that BCI devices have positive impact on students' attention skills and working memory as well as on other skills, such as visuospatial, social, imaginative and emotional abilities. BCI applications aim to emulate humans' brain and address the appropriate understanding for each student's neurodevelopmental disorders. Studies conducted to provide knowledge about BCI-based intervention applications regarding memory, attention, visuospatial, learning, collaboration, and communication, social, creative and emotional skills are highlighted. Only non-invasive BCI type of applications are being investigated based upon representative, non-exhaustive and state-of-the-art studies within the field. This article examines the progress of BCI research so far, while different BCI paradigms are investigated. BCI-based applications could successfully regulate students' cognitive abilities when used for their training and rehabilitation. Future directions to investigate BCI-based applications for training and rehabilitation of students with neurodevelopmental disorders concerning the different populations involved are discussed.

Reappraisal is an effective emotion regulation strategy in children with Tourette syndrome and ADHD

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Difficulties in emotion regulation (ER) have been associated with several psychiatric disorders, emphasizing a need for a greater understanding of the concept and its associations with disruptive behavior. We aimed to study the ER strategy of cognitive reappraisal with an experimental test to increase our knowledge of emotional processes in child psychopathology.

METHODS

In the present study, we examined emotional reactivity and cognitive reappraisal with a computer task in 160 medication-naïve children aged 8-12 comprising four groups: Fifty-eight children with Tourette syndrome (TS), 26 children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), 19 children with TS and ADHD, and 57 typically developing controls.

RESULTS

The use of cognitive reappraisal reduced negative affect across all participants and the ability to reappraise was positively correlated with age, whereas reactivity was not. Overall, groups did not differ in reactivity or regulation success. Looking at specific differences within groups, however, only the ADHD group did not significantly decrease negative affect when reappraising. Finally, the use of strategies considered to be efficacious was correlated with regulation success, whereas the use of a less adaptive strategy related to suppression was associated with reactivity, but not regulation of emotions.

LIMITATIONS

The study was limited by small, clinical contrast groups and a lack of blinding to diagnostic status in the coding of verbal strategies employed during the task.

CONCLUSIONS

Cognitive reappraisal appears to be a beneficial ER strategy for children regardless of diagnostic status. Our findings indicate that children can learn and employ an adaptive ER strategy when instructed in the technique, even in the presence of attention problems, which is highly relevant to therapeutic approaches to dysregulated behavior.

Abnormalities of the late positive potential during emotional processing in individuals with psychopathic traits: a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Individuals with psychopathic traits display deficits in emotional processing. A key event-related potential component involved in emotional processing is the late positive potential (LPP). In healthy controls, LPP amplitude is greater in response to negative stimuli than to positive or neutral stimuli. In the current study, we aimed to compare LPP amplitudes between individuals with psychopathic traits and control subjects when presented with negative, positive or neutral stimuli. We hypothesized that LPP amplitude evoked by emotional stimuli would be reduced in individuals with psychopathic traits compared to healthy controls.

METHODS

After a systematic review of the literature, we conducted a meta-analysis to compare LPP amplitude elicited by emotional stimuli in individuals with psychopathic traits and healthy controls.

RESULTS

Individuals with psychopathic traits showed significantly reduced LPP amplitude evoked by negative stimuli (mean effect size = -0.47; 95% CI -0.60 to -0.33; p < 0.005) compared to healthy controls. No significant differences between groups were observed for the processing of positive (mean effect size = -0.15; 95% CI -0.42 to 0.12; p = 0.28) and neutral stimuli (mean effect size = -0.12; 95% CI 0.31 to 0.07; p = 0.21).

CONCLUSIONS

Measured by LPP amplitude, individuals with psychopathic traits displayed abnormalities in the processing of emotional stimuli with negative valence whereas processing of stimuli with positive and neutral valence was unchanged as compared with healthy controls.

Food cue-elicited brain potentials change throughout menstrual cycle: Modulation by eating styles, negative affect, and premenstrual complaints

BACKGROUND

While there is evidence for increased food intake and craving during the luteal phase, underlying mechanisms are incompletely understood. The present study investigated electrophysiological responses to food pictures as a function of menstrual cycle phase. In addition, the moderating effects of progesterone, eating behaviors (restraint, emotional, orthorexic), negative affect, and premenstrual complaints were explored.

METHODS

Using a within-subject design, 35 free-cycling women watched and rated pictures of food (high and low caloric) and control items during the follicular, the ovulatory, and the luteal phase (counterbalanced), while EEG was recorded to examine the late positive potentials (LPP). Salivary gonadal hormones and affect were examined at each occasion. Eating behaviors and premenstrual complaints were assessed once.

RESULTS

For parietal regions, average LPPs were comparable between cycle phases but slightly larger LPP amplitudes were elicited by high caloric food pictures as compared to the neutral category. Descriptively, both food categories elicited larger parietal LPPs than neutral pictures during the luteal phase. Analyses of LPPs for central-parietal regions showed no effect of picture category or cycle phase, except higher amplitudes in the right area during the luteal phase. During the luteal phase, progesterone and functional interference from premenstrual symptoms (but not age, BMI, picture ratings, affect, estradiol, or eating behaviors) significantly predicted larger parietal LPPs towards high caloric (but not low caloric) pictures.

CONCLUSION

Our findings suggest a heightened food cue reactivity during the luteal phase, which may relate to higher ovarian hormone secretion and more functional impact of premenstrual symptoms. This research contributes to a better understanding of menstrual health and the identification of preventive strategies for premenopausal women.

Reward-Related Neural Predictors and Mechanisms of Symptom Change in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depressed Adolescent Girls

BACKGROUND

Approximately half of depressed adolescents fail to respond to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Given the variability in response, it is important to identify pretreatment characteristics that predict prognosis. Knowledge of which depressed adolescents are likely to exhibit a positive versus poor outcome to CBT may have important clinical implications (e.g., informing treatment recommendations). Emerging evidence suggests that neural reward responsiveness represents one promising predictor.

METHODS

Adolescents with major depressive disorder (n = 36) received CBT and completed a reward task at 3 time points (pretreatment, midtreatment and posttreatment) while 128-channel electroencephalographic data were acquired. Healthy control participants (n = 29) completed the same task at 3 corresponding time points. Analyses focused on event-related potentials linked to 2 stages of neural processing: initial response to rewards (reward positivity) and later, elaborative processing (late positive potential). Moreover, time-frequency analyses decomposed the reward positivity into 2 constituent components: reward-related delta and loss-related theta activity.

RESULTS

Multilevel modeling revealed that greater pretreatment reward responsiveness, as measured by the late positive potential to rewards, predicted greater depressive symptom change. In addition, a group × condition × time interaction emerged for theta activity to losses, reflecting normalization of theta power in the group with major depressive disorder from baseline to posttreatment.

CONCLUSIONS

An event-related potential measure of sustained (late positive potential)-but not initial (reward positivity)-reward responsiveness predicted symptom improvement, which may help inform which depressed adolescents are most likely to benefit from CBT. In addition to alleviating depression, successful CBT may attenuate underlying neural (theta) hypersensitivity to negative outcomes in depressed youths.

EEG based emotion recognition using minimum spanning tree

Emotion is a fundamental factor that influences human cognition, motivation, decision making and social interactions. This psychological state arises spontaneously and goes with physiological changes that can be recognized by computational methods. In this study, changes in minimum spanning tree (MST) structure of brain functional connectome were used for emotion classification based on EEG data and the obtained results were employed for interpretation about the most informative frequency content of emotional states. For estimation of interaction between different brain regions, several connectivity metrics were applied and interactions were calculated in different frequency bands. Subsequently, the MST graph was extracted from the functional connectivity matrix and its features were used for emotion recognition. The results showed that the accuracy of the proposed method for separating emotions with different arousal levels was 88.28%, while for different valence levels it was 81.25%. Interestingly, the system performance for binary classification of emotions based on quadrants of arousal-valence space was also higher than 80%. The MST approach allowed us to study the change of brain complexity and dynamics in various emotional states. This capability provided us enough knowledge to claim lower-alpha and gamma bands contain the main information for discrimination of emotional states.

Here's looking at you, kid? Maternal depression and adolescent attention to self- or other-directed emotional faces

BACKGROUND

Maternal depression history represents a significant risk factor for developing psychopathology in children, altered emotional responding may represent a central risk pathway. However, additional research is needed on factors that affect the strength or direction of response alterations in relation to depression-risk in youth. In particular, facial orientation and gaze direction may alter personal relevance, with emotions directed towards an individual heightening motivational salience, compared to emotions directed away.

METHODS

Mother-daughter dyads (N = 56) were recruited based on presence or absence of maternal depression history and absence of youth depression. In line with theoretical perspectives suggesting diminished sensitivity to emotional context in relation to depression risk, we examined three Event-Related Potential (ERP) components in relation to forward versus averted emotional faces in a sample of girls with and without a maternal history of depression: the N200, N400, and Late Positive Potential (LPP).

RESULTS

Results showed a significant maternal depression history by face-orientation effect. Low-risk girls exhibited more negative N200 and N400 amplitudes for straight (M = -3.72, SE = 0.83; M = -3.57, SE = 0.86) versus averted (M = -2.15, SE = 0.76; M = -1.68, SE = 0.81) faces, while girls of mothers with histories of depression showed undifferentiated N200 or N400 responses in relation to face orientation. For LPP amplitudes, low-risk girls exhibited significantly more positive LPP amplitudes than high-risk girls, but only for averted faces (M = 0.69, SE = 0.59 and M = -2.63, SE = 0.74, respectively).

LIMITATIONS

Cross-sectional design and limited sample.

CONCLUSIONS

Results indicate that familial depression risk is associated with altered responsivity to face-orientation, these were interpreted as representing differential sensitivity to the personal-relevance of emotional stimuli.

Toward a Refined Mindfulness Model Related to Consciousness and Based on Event-Related Potentials

Neuroimaging, behavioral, and self-report evidence suggests that there are four main cognitive mechanisms that support mindfulness: (a) self-regulation of attention, (b) improved body awareness, (c) improved emotion regulation, and (d) change in perspective on the self. In this article, we discuss these mechanisms on the basis of the event-related potential (ERP). We reviewed the ERP literature related to mindfulness and examined a data set of 29 articles. Our findings show that the neural features of mindfulness are consistently associated with the self-regulation of attention and, in most cases, reduced reactivity to emotional stimuli and improved cognitive control. On the other hand, there appear to be no studies of body awareness. We link these electrophysiological findings to models of consciousness and introduce a unified, mechanistic mindfulness model. The main idea in this refined model is that mindfulness decreases the threshold of conscious access. We end with several working hypotheses that could direct future mindfulness research and clarify our results.

Monitoring in emotion regulation: behavioral decisions and neural consequences

Monitoring and deciding how to adjust an active regulatory strategy in order to maximize adaptive outcomes is an integral element of emotion regulation, yet existing evidence remains scarce. Filling this gap, the present study examined core factors that determine behavioral regulatory monitoring decisions and the neuro-affective consequences of these decisions. Using a novel paradigm, the initial implementation of central downregulation strategies (distraction, reappraisal) and the emotional intensity (high, low) were manipulated, prior to making a behavioral decision to maintain the initial implemented strategy or switch from it. Neuro-affective consequences of these behavioral decisions were evaluated using the Late Positive Potential (LPP), an electro-cortical measure of regulatory success. Confirming predictions, initial implementation of reappraisal in high intensity and distraction in low intensity (Strategy × Intensity combinations that were established in prior studies as non-preferred by individuals), resulted in increased behavioral switching frequency. Neurally, we expected and found that in high (but not low) emotional intensity, where distraction was more effective than reappraisal, maintaining distraction (relative to switching to reappraisal) and switching to distraction (relative to maintaining reappraisal) resulted in larger LPP modulation. These findings suggest that monitoring decisions are consistent with previously established regulatory preferences and are associated with adaptive short-term neural consequences.

Emotion-Cognition Interactions in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Increased Early Attention Capture and Weakened Attentional Control in Emotional Contexts

BACKGROUND

Emotion dysregulation is a key dimensional trait in psychopathology. It is of particular interest in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) because individual differences in emotion dysregulation predict impairment. Despite growing recognition of its importance, an understanding of emotional functioning in ADHD needs to be better integrated with the well-known nonemotional attentional impairments in the disorder. Here, we assess differences in early, reactive and later, regulatory attention to emotional stimuli, as well as how impairments in attentional control to nonemotional stimuli are affected under different emotional contexts.

METHODS

In all, 130 adolescents (nADHD = 61) completed an emotional go/no-go task while 32-channel electroencephalography data were recorded. Reaction time and accuracy were analyzed using the linear ballistic accumulator model.

RESULTS

The multimethod approach provided convergent evidence of increased early, reactive attention capture and overarousal (faster drift rates, increased P1) by positively valenced stimuli in ADHD, but no differences in later attention to emotional stimuli. Overarousal in positive-valence contexts appeared to exacerbate existing ADHD-related impairments in attentional control to nonemotional stimuli as well (reduced N2 amplitude). In contrast, positive-valence contexts facilitated attentional control to nonemotional stimuli for typically developing adolescents.

CONCLUSIONS

Results highlight the dynamic interaction of emotion with attentional control in ADHD. Distinguishing reactive and regulatory contributions to emotion dysregulation has been informative for clarifying mechanisms and spurring the development of novel interventions in other disorders. It can be informative in ADHD as well.

Neural signatures of child cognitive emotion regulation are bolstered by parental social regulation in two cultures

Caregiver impact on the efficacy of cognitive emotion regulation (ER; i.e. reappraisal) during childhood is poorly understood, particularly across cultures. We tested the hypothesis that in children from Japan and the USA, a neurocognitive signature of effective reappraisal, the late positive potential (LPP), will be bolstered by cognitive scaffolding by parents, and explored whether the two cultures differed in whether mere physical proximity of parents provides similar benefit. Five-to-seven-year-olds (N = 116; n_Japan = 58; n_USA = 58) completed a directed reappraisal task (EEG-recorded) in one of three contexts: (i) parent-scaffolding, (ii) parent-present and (iii) parent-absent. Across cultures, those in the parent-scaffolding group and parent-present group showed effective reappraisal via the LPP relative to those in the parent-absent group. Results suggest that scaffolding is an effective method through which parents in these two cultures buttress child ER, and even parental passive proximity appears to have a meaningful effect on child ER across cultures.

Electrophysiological responses to images ranging in motivational salience: Attentional abnormalities associated with schizophrenia-spectrum disorder risk

Individuals at risk for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders display abnormalities related to motivational salience, or the ability of stimuli to elicit attention due to associations with rewards or punishments. However, the nature of these abnormalities is unclear because most focus on responses to stimuli from broad “pleasant” and “unpleasant” categories and ignore the variation of motivational salience within these categories. In two groups at risk for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders—a Social Anhedonia group and a Psychotic-like Experiences group—and a control group, the current study examined event-related potential components sensitive to motivational salience—the Early Posterior Negativity (EPN), reflecting earlier selective attention, and the Late Positive Potential (LPP), reflecting sustained attention. Compared to controls, the Social Anhedonia group showed smaller increases in the EPN in response to erotica and smaller increases in the LPP as the motivational salience of pleasant images increased (exciting<affiliative<erotica). In contrast, the Psychotic-like Experiences group had larger increases in LPP amplitudes as the motivational salience of pleasant images increased. Also, both at-risk groups showed larger increases in the LPP to threatening images but smaller increases to mutilation images. These findings suggest that examining abnormalities beyond those associated with broad categories may be a way to identify mechanisms of dysfunction.

Impaired Frontoparietal Connectivity in Traumatic Individuals with Disorders of Consciousness: A Dynamic Brain Network Analysis

Recent advances in neuroimaging have demonstrated that patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) may retain residual consciousness through activation of a complex functional brain network. However, an understanding of the hierarchy of residual consciousness and dynamic network connectivity in DOC patients is lacking. This study aimed to investigate residual consciousness and the dynamics of neural processing in DOC patients. We included 42 patients with DOC, categorized by aetiology. Event-related potentials combined with time-varying electroencephalography networks were used to probe affective consciousness in DOC and examine the related network mechanisms. The results showed an obvious frontal P3a component among patients in minimally conscious state (MCS), while a prominent N1 was observed in unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS). No late positive potential (LPP) was detected in these patients. Next, we divided the results by aetiology. Patients with nontraumatic injury presented an obvious frontal P3a response compared to those with traumatic injury. With respect to the dynamic network mechanism, patients with UWS, both with and without trauma, exhibited impaired frontoparietal network connectivity during the middle to late emotion processing period (P3a and LPP). Surprisingly, unconscious post-traumatic patients had an evident deficit in top-down connectivity. This, it appears that early automatic sensory identification is preserved in UWS and that exogenous attention was preserved even in MCS. However, high-level cognitive abilities were severely attenuated in unconscious patients. We also speculate that reduced frontoparietal connectivity may be useful as a biomarker to distinguish patients in an MCS from those with UWS given the same aetiology.

Low-Order Webpage Layout in Online Shopping Facilitates Purchase Decisions: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Introduction

In online shopping, the webpage layout plays an important part in the consumer's experience. The present study aims to investigate whether the webpage order and which order level (high order vs low order) facilitate consumers' instant purchase decisions for products.

Methods

Fourteen right-handed healthy undergraduates and graduate students participated in the experiment as paid participants. In the experiment, participants were presented with daily products in different online shopping webpages (high-order vs low-order) and reported their purchase intentions between purchase and not purchase. Meanwhile, Electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded from the participants throughout the experiment. In the analysis process, two event-related potentials (ERP) components, P2 and late positive potential (LPP) were mainly focused to examine the cognitive mechanism underlying the purchase decisions.

Results

The behavioral data found that the low-order shopping webpage facilitated participants' purchase intentions compared with the high-order one. Neurophysiologically, increased P2 amplitudes and increased LPP amplitudes were revealed for the low-order webpage compared to the high-order webpage. The P2 indicates the early stage of attention engagement and discordant perception, while the LPP can be taken as a reflection of the late stage of the emotional self-control process.

Conclusion

These results provided evidence that webpage order influenced people's purchase decisions. Low-order webpage design invoked more attention engagement and discordant perception and consumed more self-control resources than the high-order webpage design, which contributed to the higher purchase intentions.

Functional connectivity predicts the dispositional use of expressive suppression but not cognitive reappraisal

INTRODUCTION

Previous research has identified specific brain regions associated with regulating emotion using common strategies such as expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal. However, most research focuses on a priori regions and directs participants how to regulate, which may not reflect how people naturally regulate outside the laboratory.

METHOD

Here, we used a data-driven approach to investigate how individual differences in distributed intrinsic functional brain connectivity predict emotion regulation tendency outside the laboratory. Specifically, we used connectome-based predictive modeling to extract functional connections in the brain significantly related to the dispositional use of suppression and reappraisal. These edges were then used in a predictive model and cross-validated in novel participants to identify a neural signature that reflects individual differences in the tendency to suppress and reappraise emotion.

RESULTS

We found a significant neural signature for the dispositional use of suppression, but not reappraisal. Within this whole-brain signature, the intrinsic connectivity of the default mode network was most informative of suppression tendency. In addition, the predictive performance of this model was significant in males, but not females.

CONCLUSION

These findings help inform how whole-brain networks of functional connectivity characterize how people tend to regulate emotion outside the laboratory.

Validation of a low-cost EEG device in detecting neural correlates of social conformity

The study of conformity from a neurobiological point of view has interested many authors: among them, Shestakova and colleagues (2013) have showed how conformity can be assessed through the analysis of event related potentials (ERPs). More specifically, the P300 component of the ERP was shown to be sensitive to the behavioral adjustment that an individual makes when not agreeing with the majority of a group. Starting from these contributions, in the present study, the famous experiment of Solomon Asch [1] was replicated online. The experiment was conducted on a sample of university students, using an innovative and low-cost tool capable of recording the brain signal (a wireless headset equipped with fourteen electrodes, called Emotiv EPOC). The present research aims to demonstrate how cheap and little sensitive tools enable the detection of ERP components that characterize social conformity in an ecological context.

Preschool-Onset Major Depressive Disorder is Characterized by Electrocortical Deficits in Processing Pleasant Emotional Pictures

Reductions in positive affect are a salient feature of preschool-onset major depressive disorder. Yet, little is known about the psychophysiological correlates of this blunted positive affect and whether reduced physiological responding to pleasant stimuli may differentiate depressed and healthy young children. 120 four-to-seven year old children with current depression and 63 psychiatrically healthy 4-to-7 year old children completed a simple picture-viewing task of pleasant and neutral pictures while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. The early-childhood version of the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Depression was used to establish psychiatric diagnoses. A one-way ANCOVA was used to test for group differences in response to pleasant and neutral pictures. Young children with depression showed a reduced response to pleasant vs. neutral pictures (LPP), after controlling for children's age (F(1,180) = 4.15, p = 0.04, η2 = 0.02). The LPP for the children with preschool-onset depression (M = 0.99, SE = 0.65) was significantly smaller than the LPP in the healthy group of young children (M = 3.27, SE = 0.90). This difference did not vary as a function of depression or anhedonia severity within the group with depression or the healthy children. Similar to older children and adolescents with depression, young children with depression display reductions in responsivity to pleasant stimuli as indexed by the LPP. These findings extend prior findings indicating a blunted response to pleasant stimuli in preschool- onset depression. Given the greater neuroplasticity of emotional response and regulation, these findings suggest clinical attention to emotional response to pleasure is an important target in preschool-onset depression. Clinical trial registration information: A Randomized Control Trial of PCIT-ED for Preschool Depression; http://clinicaltrials.gov/;NCT02076425.

Neural underpinnings of the relationships between sensation seeking and emotion regulation in adolescents

There is little neurological evidence linking sensation seeking and emotion regulation in adolescence, which is characterised as an emotionally fluctuant period. The present study examined the relationship between sensation seeking and emotion regulation in adolescents. Electroencephalograms were recorded from 22 high sensation-seeking adolescents (HSSs, M_age  = 12.36) and 24 low sensation-seeking adolescents (LSSs, M_age  = 12.84) during the reactivity and regulation-image task. Group differences in event-related brain potentials (ERPs) associated with the regulation of negative and neutral stimuli were analysed. The results showed that (a) the P2 of HSSs were larger than LSSs during emotion regulation; (b) in down-regulation conditions, the LPP in all time windows were smaller than no-regulation in LSSs. However, there was no significant difference in HSSs; (c) the LPP 300-600 and LPP 1000-1500 of down-regulation were smaller in LSSs than HSSs; (d) for LPP 600-1000, HSSs induced larger LPP than LSSs in the negative down-regulation and negative no-regulation conditions. The results provide neurological evidence that higher sensation seeking is related to the high reactivity to emotional stimuli and poor cognitive control during the regulation of emotions.

Role of Emotional Appraisal in Episodic Memory in a Sample of Argentinean Preschoolers

Emotional processing and episodic memory are closely related throughout childhood development. With respect to emotional episodic memory, available evidence shows that the consolidation of information is accompanied by an arousal that generates longer duration and persistence of the memory representations. In the case of early stages of development (i.e., first 5 years), it is less clear how these associations emerge and are modulated by individual and environmental factors. In this study, 116 4- to 5-years old Argentinean children from different socio-environmental contexts (i.e., favorable or unfavorable living conditions at home), performed a task of visual emotional memory in which they observed a set of 15 images with variable emotional valences (negative, neutral, and positive). The child’s task was to appraise each image using one of the following three possible valences: (a) drawings of faces with smiles (positive valence), (b) drawings of faces with tears and round mouth with edges down (negative valence), or (c) drawings of faces with horizontal mouth (neutral valence). Five years-old children exhibited greater accuracy appraisal. Individual differences in emotional accuracy appraisal allowed us to observe different performances in free recall of negative visual images. Accuracy appraisal did not vary between children with respect to gender, living conditions at home, or language ability. Seven to ten days after the emotional appraisal children were asked to tell the experimenter all the images they remembered (variables of interest: free recall of negative, positive, or neutral images). Results showed individual (age) differences. Specifically, 5-years-old children evoked more images than 4-years-old children. These findings contribute to the understanding of emotional memory in early developmental stages and raise the need to include emotional appraisal in the assessment of episodic memory.