Anticipatory brain activity predicts the success or failure of subsequent emotion regulation

Training in Cognitive Reappraisal Normalizes Whole-Brain Indices of Emotion Regulation in Borderline Personality Disorder

BACKGROUND

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is the prototypical disorder of emotion dysregulation. We have previously shown that patients with BPD are impaired in their capacity to engage cognitive reappraisal, a frequently employed adaptive emotion regulation strategy.

METHODS

Here, we report on the efficacy of longitudinal training in cognitive reappraisal to enhance emotion regulation in patients with BPD. Specifically, the training targeted psychological distancing, a reappraisal tactic whereby negative stimuli are viewed dispassionately as though experienced by an objective, impartial observer. At each of 5 sessions over 2 weeks, 22 participants with BPD (14 female) and 22 healthy control participants (13 female) received training in psychological distancing and then completed a widely used picture-based reappraisal task. Self-reported negative affect ratings and functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired at the first and fifth sessions. In addition to behavioral analyses, we performed whole-brain pattern expression analyses using independently defined patterns for negative affect and cognitive reappraisal implementation for each session.

RESULTS

Patients with BPD showed a decrease in negative affect pattern expression following reappraisal training, reflecting a normalization in neural activity. However, they did not show significant change in behavioral self-reports.

CONCLUSIONS

To our knowledge, this study represents the first longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging examination of task-based cognitive reappraisal training. Using a brief, proof-of-concept design, the results suggest a potential role for reappraisal training in the treatment of patients with BPD.

A systems identification approach using Bayes factors to deconstruct the brain bases of emotion regulation

Cognitive reappraisal is fundamental to cognitive therapies and everyday emotion regulation. Analyses using Bayes factors and an axiomatic systems identification approach identified four reappraisal-related components encompassing distributed neural activity patterns across two independent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies (n = 182 and n = 176): (1) an anterior prefrontal system selectively involved in cognitive reappraisal; (2) a fronto-parietal-insular system engaged by both reappraisal and emotion generation, demonstrating a general role in appraisal; (3) a largely subcortical system activated during negative emotion generation but unaffected by reappraisal, including amygdala, hypothalamus and periaqueductal gray; and (4) a posterior cortical system of negative emotion-related regions downregulated by reappraisal. These systems covaried with individual differences in reappraisal success and were differentially related to neurotransmitter binding maps, implicating cannabinoid and serotonin systems in reappraisal. These findings challenge 'limbic'-centric models of reappraisal and provide new systems-level targets for assessing and enhancing emotion regulation.

Improving adaptive response to negative stimuli through non-emotional working memory training

People with high working memory (WM) capacity tend to respond proactively and experience a decrease in undesired emotions, implying the potential influence of WM training on emotional responses. Although training emotional WM could enhance emotional control, the training also improves emotional response itself. Thus, the far-transfer effects of non-emotional WM training on emotional responses remain an open question. In the present study, two experiments were conducted to detect these effects. The Preliminary experiment matched the expectations of the gains of the training tasks between the experimental and active control groups (n = 33). In Experiments 1 and 2, participants performed 7-day and 15-day training procedures, respectively. Results indicated that after a 7-day training, non-emotional WM training (n = 17) marginally reduced individuals' emotional responses compared with the active control group (n = 18); importantly, this improvement became significant after a 15-day training (n _{(WM training)} = 20, n _{(active control)} = 18). A combination analysis for Experiments 1 and 2 showed that training gains on WM performance were significantly related to reduced emotional responses (r = -0.359), indicating a dosage effect. Therefore, non-emotional WM training provides a safe and effective way to enhance adaptive emotional responses.

What Parts of Reappraisal Make Us Feel Better? Dissociating the Generation of Reappraisals from Their Implementation

Although reappraisal has been shown to be a highly successfully emotion regulation strategy, it requires several sequential steps, and it is still unclear when in the reappraisal process emotion changes. We experimentally dissociated the generation of reappraisals from their implementation and hypothesized that the biggest emotional effects would occur during implementation. In Study 1, participants (N = 106) saw a negative image and generated either just positive reappraisals (GEN ++) or positive and negative reappraisals (GEN +-). They then saw the image again and implemented either their positive reappraisals (for the GEN ++ and half of the GEN +- trials) or negative reappraisals (for the other half of GEN +- trials). Although there were small and significant changes in emotion when generating reappraisals, the robust changes in emotion that are typically observed during reappraisal occurred during implementation. In Study 2 (N = 130), we directly replicated the findings from Study 1 and demonstrated that this small emotional effect from just generating reappraisals was not due to discounting the forthcoming implementation goal. In summary, for the first time, we successfully dissociated reappraisal generation from implementation and show that the biggest emotional effects occur during implementation. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding emotion regulation, the neural underpinnings of reappraisal, and the conditions for reappraisal success in clinical contexts.

Dynamics of the ideal self

Purpose

The ideal self has had a place in management literature in recent years with reference to identity and role change. However, except for a JMD article in 2006, there has been little theorizing on the ideal self, which is often treated as a static construct. The purpose of this article is to update and refine the concept and explain the dynamic nature of the construct.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual paper is based on a review of the recent management and psychology literature related to the ideal self and its components.

Findings

The authors propose a dynamic theory of the emerging ideal self and delineate how its components evolve over time.

Research limitations/implications

The ideal self, or one's personal vision, is a major motivator of learning and change and the sustainability of such efforts. The time dynamic theory would encourage and guide longitudinal research using better variables and measures as well as help in conceptualizing the role of socialization, social identity and life/career stages.

Practical implications

With a better theory of the ideal self, trainers, consultants, coaches and teachers can help people update their deep sense of purpose and the sustaining driver of learning and change the ideal self. It could help people and organizations address a major determinant of engagement.

Originality/value

This theory offers a temporal understanding of how the ideal self can motivate learning and change at different life and career eras, which can help in designing future research on identity-related transitions.

Applying machine learning EEG signal classification to emotion‑related brain anticipatory activity

Machine learning approaches have been fruitfully applied to several neurophysiological signal classification problems. Considering the relevance of emotion in human cognition and behaviour, an important application of machine learning has been found in the field of emotion identification based on neurophysiological activity. Nonetheless, there is high variability in results in the literature depending on the neuronal activity measurement, the signal features and the classifier type. The present work aims to provide new methodological insight into machine learning applied to emotion identification based on electrophysiological brain activity. For this reason, we analysed previously recorded EEG activity measured while emotional stimuli, high and low arousal (auditory and visual) were provided to a group of healthy participants. Our target signal to classify was the pre-stimulus onset brain activity. Classification performance of three different classifiers (LDA, SVM and kNN) was compared using both spectral and temporal features. Furthermore, we also contrasted the performance of static and dynamic (time evolving) approaches. The best static feature-classifier combination was the SVM with spectral features (51.8%), followed by LDA with spectral features (51.4%) and kNN with temporal features (51%). The best dynamic feature classifier combination was the SVM with temporal features (63.8%), followed by kNN with temporal features (63.70%) and LDA with temporal features (63.68%). The results show a clear increase in classification accuracy with temporal dynamic features.

Pupil dilation predicts individual self-regulation success across domains

Multiple theories have proposed that increasing central arousal through the brain's locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system may facilitate cognitive control and memory. However, the role of the arousal system in emotion regulation is less well understood. Pupil diameter is a proxy to infer upon the central arousal state. We employed an emotion regulation paradigm with a combination of design features that allowed us to dissociate regulation from emotional arousal in the pupil diameter time course of 34 healthy adults. Pupil diameter increase during regulation predicted individual differences in emotion regulation success beyond task difficulty. Moreover, the extent of this individual regulatory arousal boost predicted performance in another self-control task, dietary health challenges. Participants who harnessed more regulation-associated arousal during emotion regulation were also more successful in choosing healthier foods. These results suggest that a common arousal-based facilitation mechanism may support an individual's self-control across domains.

White matter microstructure varies with post-traumatic stress severity following medical trauma

The prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and hypothalamus are important components of the neural network that mediates the healthy learning, expression, and regulation of emotion. These brain regions are connected by white matter pathways that include the cingulum bundle, uncinate fasciculus, and fornix/stria terminalis. Individuals with trauma and stress-related disorders show dysfunction of the cognitive-affective processes supported by the brain regions these white matter tracts connect. Therefore, variability in the microstructure of these white matter pathways may play an important role in the cognitive-affective dysfunction related to post-traumatic stress disorder. Thus, the current study used diffusion weighted imaging to assess the white matter microstructure of the cingulum bundle, uncinate fasciculus, and fornix/stria terminalis acutely (< 1 month) following trauma. Further, we assessed both acute (i.e., < 1 month) and subacute (i.e., 3 months post-trauma) post-traumatic stress symptom severity. White matter microstructure (assessed < 1 month post-trauma) of the uncinate fasciculus and fornix/stria terminalis varied with acute post-traumatic stress severity (assessed < 1 month post-trauma). Further, white matter microstructure (assessed < 1 month post-trauma) of the cingulum bundle and fornix/stria terminalis varied with subacute post-traumatic stress severity (assessed 3 months post-trauma). The current results suggest white matter architecture of the prefrontal cortex - amygdala network plays an important role in the development of trauma and stress-related disorders.

Functional Decoupling of Emotion Coping Network Subsides Automatic Emotion Regulation by Implementation Intention

Automatic emotion regulation (AER) plays a vital role in the neuropathology underlying both suicide and self-harm via modifying emotional impact effortlessly. However, both the effortless account and the neural mechanisms of AER are undetermined. To investigate the neural changes at AER, we collected functional MRI (fMRI) in 31 participants who attended to neutral and disgust pictures in three conditions: watching, goal intention (GI), and reappraisal by implementation intention (RII). Results showed that RII (but not GI) decreased negative feelings and bilateral amygdala activity without increasing cognitive efforts, evidenced by the reduced effort rating and less prefrontal engagement during RII compared with during watching and GI. These emotion-regulatory effects of RII cannot be explained by emotional habituation, as the supplementary experiment (N = 31) showed no emotional habituation effects when the same disgust pictures were presented repeatedly three times for each watching and GI condition. Task-based network analysis showed both RII and GI relative to watching increased functional connectivities (FCs) of the ventral anterior cingulate cortex to the left insula and right precuneus during conditions, two FCs subserving goal setup. However, RII relative to GI exhibited weaker FCs in brain networks subserving effortful control, memory retrieval, aversive anticipation, and motor planning. In these FCs, the FC intensity of putamen-operculum/lingual and paracentral-superior temporal gyri positively predicted regulatory difficulty ratings. These findings suggest that the setup of implementation intention automatizes emotion regulation by reducing the online mobilization of emotion-coping neural systems.

Trial-by-Trial Fluctuations in Brain Responses to Stress Predict Subsequent Smoking Decisions That Occur Several Seconds Later

BACKGROUND

To investigate the neurobiological mechanisms that determine self-regulation of smoking urges when a person encounters stress, we investigated brain network interactions of smoking self-regulation by employing a real-time smoking (nicotine delivery) decision paradigm and a brain-as-predictor neuroimaging approach.

METHODS

While in the functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner, 25 cigarette smokers who abstained from smoking overnight made 200 real smoking decisions regarding whether or not to take a puff of an electronic cigarette during 3 different stress conditions (cognitive stress, emotional stress, and no stress). Cognitive stress was induced by a concurrent working memory load, and emotional stress was induced by manipulating a chance of aversive electric shock.

RESULTS

Behaviorally, both cognitive and emotional stress manipulations increased the probability of making a decision to smoke (i.e., taking a puff). In magnetic resonance imaging trial-by-trial analyses, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity measured at the time of the stress cue significantly predicted future smoking decisions that occurred several seconds later. Furthermore, the influence of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity on smoking decisions was mediated by the ventral striatum activity at the time of smoking decisions.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study demonstrated that brain responses at the time of a stressful moment determine subsequent trial-by-trial smoking decisions by systematically altering brain executive (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and reward (ventral striatum) system network activities. Our results further suggest potential translational importance of neuroscientific approaches to predicting self-regulation failures at critical stressful moments.

Oxytocin Differentially Modulates Amygdala Responses during Top-Down and Bottom-Up Aversive Anticipation

The ability to successfully regulate negative emotions such as fear and anxiety is vital for mental health. Intranasal administration of the neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) has been shown to reduce amygdala activity but to increase amygdala-prefrontal cortex connectivity during exposure to threatening stimuli suggesting that it may act as an important modulator of emotion regulation. The present randomized, between-subject, placebo-controlled pharmacological study combines the intranasal administration of OXT with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during an explicit emotion regulation paradigm in 65 healthy male participants to investigate the modulatory effects of OXT on both bottom-up and top-down emotion regulation. OXT attenuates the activation in the posterior insular cortex and amygdala during anticipation of top-down regulation of predictable threat stimuli in participants with high trait anxiety. In contrast, OXT enhances amygdala activity during the bottom-up anticipation of unpredictable threat stimuli in participants with low trait anxiety. OXT may facilitate top-down goal-directed attention by attenuating amygdala activity in high anxiety individuals, while promoting bottom-up attention/vigilance to unexpected threats by enhancing amygdala activity in low anxiety individuals. OXT may thus have the potential to promote an adaptive balance between bottom-up and top-down attention systems depending on an individual's trait anxiety level.

Regulation of Craving and Negative Emotion in Alcohol Use Disorder

BACKGROUND

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a chronic, relapsing condition with poor treatment outcomes. Both alcohol craving and negative affect increase alcohol drinking, and-in healthy adults-can be attenuated using cognitive strategies, which rely on the prefrontal cortex (PFC). However, AUD is associated with cognitive impairments and PFC disruptions. Thus, we tested whether individuals with AUD can successfully recruit the PFC to effectively regulate craving and negative emotions, whether neural mechanisms are shared between the two types of regulation, and whether individual differences influence regulation success.

METHODS

During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants with AUD completed the regulation of craving task (n = 17) that compares a cue-induced craving condition with an instructed regulation condition. They also completed the emotion regulation task (n = 15) that compares a negative affect condition with an instructed regulation condition. Regulation strategies were drawn from cognitive behavioral therapy treatments for AUD. Self-reported craving and negative affect were collected on each trial.

RESULTS

Individuals with AUD effectively regulated their craving and negative affect when instructed to do so using cognitive behavioral therapy-based strategies. Regulation was associated with recruitment of both common and distinct PFC regions across tasks, as well as with reduced activity in regions associated with craving and negative affect (e.g., ventral striatum, amygdala). Effective regulation of craving was associated with negative alcohol expectancies.

CONCLUSIONS

Both common and distinct regulatory systems underlie regulation of craving and negative emotions in AUD, with notable individual differences. This has important implications for AUD treatment.

Improved state change estimation in dynamic functional connectivity using hidden semi-Markov models

The study of functional brain networks has grown rapidly over the past decade. While most functional connectivity (FC) analyses estimate one static network structure for the entire length of the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) time series, recently there has been increased interest in studying time-varying changes in FC. Hidden Markov models (HMMs) have proven to be a useful modeling approach for discovering repeating graphs of interacting brain regions (brain states). However, a limitation lies in HMMs assuming that the sojourn time, the number of consecutive time points in a state, is geometrically distributed. This may encourage inaccurate estimation of the time spent in a state before switching to another state. We propose a hidden semi-Markov model (HSMM) approach for inferring time-varying brain networks from fMRI data, which explicitly models the sojourn distribution. Specifically, we propose using HSMMs to find each subject's most probable series of network states and the graphs associated with each state, while properly estimating and modeling the sojourn distribution for each state. We perform a simulation study, as well as an analysis on both task-based fMRI data from an anxiety-inducing experiment and resting-state fMRI data from the Human Connectome Project. Our results demonstrate the importance of model choice when estimating sojourn times and reveal their potential for understanding healthy and diseased brain mechanisms.

The neural basis of motivational influences on cognitive control

Cognitive control mechanisms support the deliberate regulation of thought and behavior based on current goals. Recent work suggests that motivational incentives improve cognitive control and has begun to elucidate critical neural substrates. We conducted a quantitative meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies of motivated cognitive control using activation likelihood estimation (ALE) and Neurosynth to delineate the brain regions that are consistently activated across studies. The analysis included studies that investigated changes in brain activation during cognitive control tasks when reward incentives were present versus absent. The ALE analysis revealed consistent recruitment in regions associated with the frontoparietal control network including the inferior frontal sulcus and intraparietal sulcus, as well as regions associated with the salience network including the anterior insula and anterior mid-cingulate cortex. As a complementary analysis, we performed a large-scale exploratory meta-analysis using Neurosynth to identify regions that are recruited in studies using of the terms cognitive control and incentive. This analysis replicated the ALE results and also identified the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex, caudate nucleus, nucleus accumbens, medial thalamus, inferior frontal junction, premotor cortex, and hippocampus. Finally, we separately compared recruitment during cue and target periods, which tap into proactive engagement of rule-outcome associations, and the mobilization of appropriate viscero-motor states to execute a response, respectively. We found that largely distinct sets of brain regions are recruited during cue and target periods. Altogether, these findings suggest that flexible interactions between frontoparietal, salience, and dopaminergic midbrain-striatal networks may allow control demands to be precisely tailored based on expected value.

Brain-to-brain synchronization across two persons predicts mutual prosociality

People tend to be more prosocial after synchronizing behaviors with others, yet the underlying neural mechanisms are rarely known. In this study, participant dyads performed either a coordination task or an independence task, with their brain activations recorded via the functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning technique. Participant dyads in the coordination group showed higher synchronized behaviors and greater subsequent inclination to help each other than those in the independence group, indicating the prosocial effect of interpersonal synchrony. Importantly, the coordination group demonstrated the significant task-related brain coherence, namely the interbrain synchronization, at the left middle frontal area. The detected interbrain synchronization was sensitive to shared intentionality between participants and was correlated with the mutual prosocial inclination. Further, the task-related brain coherence played a mediation role in the prosocial effect of interpersonal synchrony. This study reveals the relevance of brain-to-brain synchronization among individuals with subsequent mutual prosocial inclination and suggests the neural mechanism associating with shared cognition for the facilitation of interpersonal synchrony on prosociality.

Simple arithmetic: not so simple for highly math anxious individuals

Fluency with simple arithmetic, typically achieved in early elementary school, is thought to be one of the building blocks of mathematical competence. Behavioral studies with adults indicate that math anxiety (feelings of tension or apprehension about math) is associated with poor performance on cognitively demanding math problems. However, it remains unclear whether there are fundamental differences in how high and low math anxious individuals approach overlearned simple arithmetic problems that are less reliant on cognitive control. The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural correlates of simple arithmetic performance across high and low math anxious individuals. We implemented a partial least squares analysis, a data-driven, multivariate analysis method to measure distributed patterns of whole-brain activity associated with performance. Despite overall high simple arithmetic performance across high and low math anxious individuals, performance was differentially dependent on the fronto-parietal attentional network as a function of math anxiety. Specifically, low—compared to high—math anxious individuals perform better when they activate this network less—a potential indication of more automatic problem-solving. These findings suggest that low and high math anxious individuals approach even the most fundamental math problems differently.

Longitudinal effects of cognitive behavioral therapy for depression on the neural correlates of emotion regulation

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is effective for a substantial minority of patients suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD), but its mechanism of action at the neural level is not known. As core techniques of CBT seek to enhance emotion regulation, we scanned 31 MDD participants prior to 14 sessions of CBT using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a task in which participants engaged in a voluntary emotion regulation strategy while recalling negative autobiographical memories. Eighteen healthy controls were also scanned. Twenty-three MDD participants completed post-treatment fMRI scanning, and 12 healthy volunteers completed repeat scanning without intervention. Better treatment outcome was associated with longitudinal enhancement of the emotion regulation-dependent BOLD contrast within subgenual anterior cingulate, medial prefrontal cortex, and lingual gyrus. Baseline emotion regulation-dependent BOLD contrast did not predict treatment outcome or differ between MDD and control groups. CBT response may be mediated by enhanced downregulation of neural activity during emotion regulation; brain regions identified overlap with those found using a similar task in a normative sample, and include regions related to self-referential and emotion processing. Future studies should seek to determine specificity of this downregulation to CBT, and evaluate it as a treatment target in MDD.

Brain responses to vestibular pain and its anticipation in women with Genito-Pelvic Pain/Penetration Disorder

Objective

In DSM-5, pain-related fear during anticipation of vaginal penetration is a diagnostic criterion of Genito-Pelvic Pain/Penetration Disorder (GPPPD). We aimed to investigate subjective and brain responses during anticipatory fear and subsequent induction of vestibular pain in women with GPPPD.

Methods

Women with GPPPD (n = 18) and age-matched healthy controls (HC) (n = 15) underwent fMRI scanning during vestibular pain induction at individually titrated pain threshold after a cued anticipation period. (Pain-related) fear and anxiety traits were measured with questionnaires prior to scanning, and anticipatory fear and pain intensity were rated during scanning using visual analog scales.

Results

Women with GPPPD reported significantly higher levels of anticipatory fear and pain intensity. During anticipation and pain induction they had stronger and more extensive brain responses in regions involved in cognitive and affective aspects of pain perception, but the group difference did not reach significance for the anticipation condition. Pain-related fear and anxiety traits as well as anticipatory fear ratings were positively associated with pain ratings in GPPPD, but not in HC. Further, in HC, a negative association was found between anticipatory fear ratings and brain responses in regions involved in cognitive and affective aspects of pain perception, but not in women with GPPPD.

Conclusions

Women with GPPPD are characterized by increased subjective and brain responses to vestibular pain and, to a lesser extent, its anticipation, with fear and anxiety associated with responses to pain, supporting the introduction of anticipatory fear as a criterion of GPPPD in DSM-5.

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Both subjective and brain responses during anticipation and induction of vestibular pain are increased in women with GPPPD.

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Between-group differences were found in brain regions involved in cognitive and affective aspects of the pain experience.

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These results support the addition of pain-related fear and anxiety in the diagnostic criteria of GPPPD in DSM-5.

The neural component-process architecture of endogenously generated emotion

Despite the ubiquity of endogenous emotions and their role in both resilience and pathology, the processes supporting their generation are largely unknown. We propose a neural component process model of endogenous generation of emotion (EGE) and test it in two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments (N = 32/293) where participants generated and regulated positive and negative emotions based on internal representations, usin self-chosen generation methods. EGE activated nodes of salience (SN), default mode (DMN) and frontoparietal control (FPCN) networks. Component processes implemented by these networks were established by investigating their functional associations, activation dynamics and integration. SN activation correlated with subjective affect, with midbrain nodes exclusively distinguishing between positive and negative affect intensity, showing dynamics consistent generation of core affect. Dorsomedial DMN, together with ventral anterior insula, formed a pathway supporting multiple generation methods, with activation dynamics suggesting it is involved in the generation of elaborated experiential representations. SN and DMN both coupled to left frontal FPCN which in turn was associated with both subjective affect and representation formation, consistent with FPCN supporting the executive coordination of the generation process. These results provide a foundation for research into endogenous emotion in normal, pathological and optimal function.

Convergent individual differences in visual cortices, but not the amygdala across standard amygdalar fMRI probe tasks

The amygdala (AMG) has been repeatedly implicated in the processing of threatening and negatively valenced stimuli and multiple fMRI paradigms have reported personality, genetic, and psychopathological associations with individual differences in AMG activation in these paradigms. Yet the interchangeability of activations in these probes has not been established, thus it remains unclear if we can interpret AMG responses on specific tasks as general markers of its reactivity. In this study we aimed to assess if different tasks that have been widely used within the Affective Neuroscience literature consistently recruit the AMG.

METHOD

Thirty-two young healthy subjects completed four fMRI tasks that have all been previously shown to probe the AMG during processing of threatening stimuli: the Threat Face Matching (TFM), the Cued Aversive Picture (CAP), the Aversive and Erotica Pictures (AEP) and the Screaming Lady paradigm (SLp) tasks. Contrasts testing response to aversive stimuli relative to baseline or neutral stimuli were generated and correlations between activations in the AMG were calculated across tasks were performed for ROIs of the AMG.

RESULTS

The TFM, CAP and AEP, but not the SLp, successfully recruit the AMG, among other brain regions, especially when contrasts were against baseline or nonsocial stimuli. Conjunction analysis across contrasts showed that visual cortices (VisCtx) were also consistently recruited. Correlation analysis between the extracted data for right and left AMG did not yield significant associations across tasks. By contrast, the extracted signal in VisCtx showed significant associations across tasks (range r=0.511-r=0.630).

CONCLUSIONS

Three of the four paradigms revealed significant AMG reactivity, but individual differences in the magnitudes of AMG reactivity were not correlated across paradigms. By contrast, VisCtx activation appears to be a better candidate than the AMG as a measure of individual differences with convergent validity across negative emotion processing paradigms.

Better Not to Know? Emotion Regulation Fails to Benefit from Affective Cueing

Often we know whether an upcoming event is going to be good or bad. But does that knowledge help us regulate ensuing emotions? To address this question, we exposed participants to alleged social feedback that was either positive or negative. On half the trials, a preceding cue indicated the feedback’s affective quality. On the remaining trials, the cue was uninformative. In two different blocks, participants either appraised feedback spontaneously or down-regulated ensuing emotions using a controlled appraisal strategy. Event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded throughout both blocks revealed an increased late positive potential (LPP) during cue and feedback epochs when cues were affectively informative as compared to uninformative. Additionally, during feedback epochs only, informative, but not uninformative, cueing was associated with an appraisal effect whereby controlled appraisal reduced the LPP relative to spontaneous appraisal for negative feedback. There was an opposite trend for positive feedback. Together, these results suggest that informative cues allowed individuals to anticipate an emotional response and to adjust emotion regulation. Overall, however, informative cues seemed to have prolonged and intensified emotional responding when compared with uninformative cues. Thus, affective cueing appears to be contraindicated when individuals aim to reduce their emotions.

Finding Positive Meaning in Negative Experiences Engages Ventral Striatal and Ventromedial Prefrontal Regions Associated with Reward Valuation

Neuroimaging research has identified systems that facilitate minimizing negative emotion, but how the brain is able to transform the valence of an emotional response from negative to positive is unclear. Behavioral and psychophysiological studies suggest a distinction between minimizing reappraisal, which entails diminishing the arousal elicited by negative stimuli, and positive reappraisal, which instead changes the emotional valence of arousal from negative to positive. Here we show that successful minimizing reappraisal tracked with decreased activity in the amygdala, but successful positive reappraisal tracked with increased activity in regions involved in computing reward value, including the ventral striatum and ventromedial pFC (vmPFC). Moreover, positive reappraisal enhanced positive connectivity between vmPFC and amygdala, and individual differences in positive connectivity between vmPFC and amygdala, ventral striatum, dorsomedial pFC, and dorsolateral pFC predicted greater positive reappraisal success. These data broaden models of emotion regulation as quantitative dampening of negative emotion and identify activity in a network of brain valuation, arousal, and control regions as a neural basis for the ability to create positive meaning from negative experiences.

Does inhibitory control training transfer?: behavioral and neural effects on an untrained emotion regulation task

Inhibitory control (IC) is a critical neurocognitive skill for successfully navigating challenges across domains. Several studies have attempted to use training to improve neurocognitive skills such as IC, but few have found that training generalizes to performance on non-trained tasks. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the effect of IC training on a related but untrained emotion regulation (ER) task with the goal of clarifying how training alters brain function and why its effects typically do not transfer across tasks. We suggest hypotheses for training-related changes in activation relevant to transfer effects: the strength model and several plausible alternatives (shifting priorities, stimulus-response automaticity, scaffolding). Sixty participants completed three weeks of IC training and underwent fMRI scanning before and after. The training produced pre- to post-training changes in neural activation during the ER task in the absence of behavioral changes. Specifically, individuals in the training group demonstrated reduced activation during ER in the left inferior frontal gyrus and supramarginal gyrus, key regions in the IC neural network. This result is less consistent with the strength model and more consistent with a motivational account. Implications for future work aiming to further pinpoint mechanisms of training transfer are discussed.

Cognitive neuroscience of human counterfactual reasoning

Counterfactual reasoning is a hallmark of human thought, enabling the capacity to shift from perceiving the immediate environment to an alternative, imagined perspective. Mental representations of counterfactual possibilities (e.g., imagined past events or future outcomes not yet at hand) provide the basis for learning from past experience, enable planning and prediction, support creativity and insight, and give rise to emotions and social attributions (e.g., regret and blame). Yet remarkably little is known about the psychological and neural foundations of counterfactual reasoning. In this review, we survey recent findings from psychology and neuroscience indicating that counterfactual thought depends on an integrative network of systems for affective processing, mental simulation, and cognitive control. We review evidence to elucidate how these mechanisms are systematically altered through psychiatric illness and neurological disease. We propose that counterfactual thinking depends on the coordination of multiple information processing systems that together enable adaptive behavior and goal-directed decision making and make recommendations for the study of counterfactual inference in health, aging, and disease.

Affective state and locus of control modulate the neural response to threat

The ability to regulate the emotional response to threat is critical to healthy emotional function. However, the response to threat varies considerably from person-to-person. This variability may be partially explained by differences in emotional processes, such as locus of control and affective state, which vary across individuals. Although the basic neural circuitry that mediates the response to threat has been described, the impact individual differences in affective state and locus of control have on that response is not well characterized. Understanding how these factors influence the neural response to threat would provide new insight into processes that mediate emotional function. Therefore, the present study used a Pavlovian conditioning procedure to investigate the influence individual differences in locus of control, positive affect, and negative affect have on the brain and behavioral responses to predictable and unpredictable threats. Thirty-two healthy volunteers participated in a fear conditioning study in which predictable and unpredictable threats (i.e., unconditioned stimulus) were presented during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Locus of control showed a linear relationship with learning-related ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity such that the more external an individual's locus of control, the greater their differential response to predictable versus unpredictable threat. In addition, positive and negative affectivity showed a curvilinear relationship with dorsolateral PFC, dorsomedial PFC, and insula activity, such that those with high or low affectivity showed reduced regional activity compared to those with an intermediate level of affectivity. Further, activity within the PFC, as well as other regions including the amygdala, were linked with the peripheral emotional response as indexed by skin conductance and electromyography. The current findings demonstrate that the neural response to threat within brain regions that mediate the peripheral emotional response is modulated by an individual's affective state as well as their perceptions of an event's causality.

A neural mediator of human anxiety sensitivity

Advances in the neuroscientific understanding of bodily autonomic awareness, or interoception, have led to the hypothesis that human trait anxiety sensitivity (AS)-the fear of bodily autonomic arousal-is primarily mediated by the anterior insular cortex. Despite broad appeal, few experimental studies have comprehensively addressed this hypothesis. We recruited 55 individuals exhibiting a range of AS and assessed them with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during aversive fear conditioning. For each participant, three primary measures of interest were derived: a trait Anxiety Sensitivity Index score; an in-scanner rating of elevated bodily anxiety sensations during fear conditioning; and a corresponding estimate of whole-brain functional activation to the conditioned versus nonconditioned stimuli. Using a voxel-wise mediation analysis framework, we formally tested for 'neural mediators' of the predicted association between trait AS score and in-scanner anxiety sensations during fear conditioning. Contrary to the anterior insular hypothesis, no evidence of significant mediation was observed for this brain region, which was instead linked to perceived anxiety sensations independently from AS. Evidence for significant mediation was obtained for the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex-a finding that we argue is more consistent with the hypothesized role of human cingulofrontal cortex in conscious threat appraisal processes, including threat-overestimation. This study offers an important neurobiological validation of the AS construct and identifies a specific neural substrate that may underlie high AS clinical phenotypes, including but not limited to panic disorder.

Inferences of Others' Competence Reduces Anticipation of Pain When under Threat

On a daily basis, we place our lives in the hands of strangers. From dentists to pilots, we make inferences about their competence to perform their jobs and consequently to keep us from harm. Here we explore whether the perceived competence of others can alter one's anticipation of pain. In two studies, participants (Receivers) believed their chances of experiencing an aversive stimulus were directly dependent on the performance of another person (Players). We predicted that perceiving the Players as highly competent would reduce Receivers' anxiety when anticipating the possibility of an electric shock. Results confirmed that high competence ratings consistently corresponded with lower reported anxiety, and complementary fMRI data showed that increased competence perception was further expressed as decreased activity in the bilateral posterior insula, a region localized to actual pain stimulation. These studies suggest that inferences of competence act as predictors of protection and reduce the expectation of negative outcomes.

Emotional intensity influences pre-implementation and implementation of distraction and reappraisal

Although emotional intensity powerfully challenges regulatory strategies, its influence remains largely unexplored in affective-neuroscience. Accordingly, the present study addressed the moderating role of emotional intensity in two regulatory stages--implementation (during regulation) and pre-implementation (prior to regulation), of two major cognitive regulatory strategies--distraction and reappraisal. According to our framework, because distraction implementation involves early attentional disengagement from emotional information before it gathers force, in high-intensity it should be more effective in the short-term, relative to reappraisal, which modulates emotional processing only at a late semantic meaning phase. Supporting findings showed that in high (but not low) intensity, distraction implementation resulted in stronger modulation of negative experience, reduced neural emotional processing (centro-parietal late positive potential, LPP), with suggestive evidence for less cognitive effort (frontal-LPP), relative to reappraisal. Related pre-implementation findings confirmed that anticipating regulation of high-intensity stimuli resulted in distraction (over reappraisal) preference. In contrast, anticipating regulation of low-intensity stimuli resulted in reappraisal (over distraction) preference, which is most beneficial for long-term adaptation. Furthermore, anticipating cognitively demanding regulation, either in cases of regulating counter to these preferences or via the more effortful strategy of reappraisal, enhanced neural attentional resource allocation (Stimulus Preceding Negativity). Broad implications are discussed.

The neural correlates of emotion alignment in social interaction

Talking about emotion and sharing emotional experiences is a key component of human interaction. Specifically, individuals often consider the reactions of other people when evaluating the meaning and impact of an emotional stimulus. It has not yet been investigated, however, how emotional arousal ratings and physiological responses elicited by affective stimuli are influenced by the rating of an interaction partner. In the present study, pairs of participants were asked to rate and communicate the degree of their emotional arousal while viewing affective pictures. Strikingly, participants adjusted their arousal ratings to match up with their interaction partner. In anticipation of the affective picture, the interaction partner's arousal ratings correlated positively with activity in anterior insula and prefrontal cortex. During picture presentation, social influence was reflected in the ventral striatum, that is, activity in the ventral striatum correlated negatively with the interaction partner's ratings. Results of the study show that emotional alignment through the influence of another person's communicated experience has to be considered as a complex phenomenon integrating different components including emotion anticipation and conformity.

Increased amygdala and visual cortex activity and functional connectivity towards stimulus novelty is associated with state anxiety

Novel stimuli often require a rapid reallocation of sensory processing resources to determine the significance of the event, and the appropriate behavioral response. Both the amygdala and the visual cortex are central elements of the neural circuitry responding to novelty, demonstrating increased activity to new as compared to highly familiarized stimuli. Further, these brain areas are intimately connected, and thus the amygdala may be a key region for directing sensory processing resources to novel events. Although knowledge regarding the neurocircuit of novelty detection is gradually increasing, we still lack a basic understanding of the conditions that are necessary and sufficient for novelty-specific responses in human amygdala and the visual cortices, and if these brain areas interact during detection of novelty. In the present study, we investigated the response of amygdala and the visual cortex to novelty, by comparing functional MRI activity between 1st and 2nd time presentation of a series of emotional faces in an event-related task. We observed a significant decrease in amygdala and visual cortex activity already after a single stimulus exposure. Interestingly, this decrease in responsiveness was less for subjects with a high score on state anxiety. Further, novel faces stimuli were associated with a relative increase in the functional coupling between the amygdala and the inferior occipital gyrus (BA 18). Thus, we suggest that amygdala is involved in fast sensory boosting that may be important for attention reallocation to novel events, and that the strength of this response depends on individual state anxiety.

Bad and worse: neural systems underlying reappraisal of high- and low-intensity negative emotions

One of the most effective strategies for regulating emotional responses is cognitive reappraisal. While prior work has made great strides in characterizing reappraisal's neural mechanisms and behavioral outcomes, the key issue of how regulation varies as a function of emotional intensity remains unaddressed. We compared the behavioral and neural correlates of reappraisal of high- and low-intensity emotional responses using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that successful reappraisal of both high- and low-intensity emotions depends upon recruitment of dorsomedial (dmPFC) as well as left dorsolateral (dlPFC) and ventrolateral (vlPFC) prefrontal cortex. However, reappraisal of high-intensity emotions more strongly activated left dlPFC, and in addition, activated right lateral and dorsomedial PFC regions not recruited by low-intensity reappraisal. No brain regions were more strongly recruited during reappraisal of low when compared with high-intensity emotions. Taken together, these results suggest that reappraisal of high-intensity emotion requires greater cognitive resources as evidenced by quantitative and qualitative differences in prefrontal recruitment. These data have implications for understanding how and when specific PFC systems are needed to regulate different types of emotional responses.

The neural bases of uninstructed negative emotion modulation

Although numerous neuroimaging studies have examined what happens when individuals are instructed to regulate their emotions, we rarely receive such instruction in everyday life. This study sought to examine what underlies uninstructed modulation of negative affect by examining neural responses when 'responding naturally' to negative stimuli-and for comparison-during instructed reappraisal of negative stimuli as well. Two analyses were conducted to identify how variability in negative affect related to neural responses when responding naturally. First, in a within-participant analysis, lower levels of self-reported negative affect on a given trial were associated with recruitment of dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (PFC)-brain regions also active during instructed reappraisal-whereas higher levels of negative affect were associated with recruitment of the amygdala-a region that responded more strongly overall to negative than neutral stimuli. Second, in a between-participant analysis, lower levels of average self-reported negative affect were associated with recruitment of ventromedial PFC. These results suggest that uninstructed modulation of emotion involves a combination of two types of regulatory processes, with moment-to-moment modulation depending on prefrontal regions that support reappraisal and individual differences in modulation depending on ventromedial PFC, a region involved in fear extinction.

Behavioral effects of longitudinal training in cognitive reappraisal

Although recent emotion regulation research has identified effective regulatory strategies that participants can employ during single experimental sessions, a critical but unresolved question is whether one can increase the efficacy with which one can deploy these strategies through repeated practice. To address this issue, we focused on one strategy, reappraisal, which involves cognitively reframing affective events in ways that modulate one's emotional response to them. With a commonly used reappraisal task, we assessed the behavioral correlates of four laboratory sessions of guided practice in down-regulating responses to aversive photos. Two groups received practice in one of two types of reappraisal tactics: psychological distancing and reinterpretation. A third no-regulation control group viewed images in each session without instructions to regulate. Three key findings were observed. First, both distancing and reinterpretation training resulted in reductions over time in self-reported negative affect. Second, distancing participants also showed a reduction over time in negative affect on baseline trials in which they responded naturally. Only distancing group participants showed such a reduction over and above the reduction observed in the no-regulation control group, indicating that it was not attributable to habituation. Third, only participants who distanced reported less perceived stress in their daily lives. The present results provide the first evidence for the longitudinal trainability of reappraisal in healthy adults using short courses of reappraisal practice, particularly using psychological distancing.

The temporal dynamics of cognitive reappraisal: cardiovascular consequences of downregulation of negative emotion and upregulation of positive emotion

This study examines the effects of cognitive reappraisal on the cardiovascular response to affective stimuli. Participants (N = 53) were shown affective images and were asked either to attend to the images, or to downregulate negative affect through reappraisal of negative images or upregulate positive affect through reappraisal of positive images while continuous measures of cardiovascular activity were recorded. Reappraisal of negative images was associated with lower total peripheral resistance and larger cardiac output in the prestimulus period, whereas reappraisal of positive images was associated with less pronounced decreases of heart rate, cardiac output, and mean blood pressure in the viewing period as compared to unregulated conditions. The results indicate that cognitive reappraisal engenders adaptive hemodynamic profiles both during anticipation and during viewing of affective images depending on their valence and the regulatory goal.

A meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies of self- and other judgments reveals a spatial gradient for mentalizing in medial prefrontal cortex

The distinction between processes used to perceive and understand the self and others has received considerable attention in psychology and neuroscience. Brain findings highlight a role for various regions, in particular the medial PFC (mPFC), in supporting judgments about both the self and others. We performed a meta-analysis of 107 neuroimaging studies of self- and other-related judgments using multilevel kernel density analysis [Kober, H., & Wager, T. D. Meta-analyses of neuroimaging data. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews, 1, 293-300, 2010]. We sought to determine what brain regions are reliably involved in each judgment type and, in particular, what the spatial and functional organization of mPFC is with respect to them. Relative to nonmentalizing judgments, both self- and other judgments were associated with activity in mPFC, ranging from ventral to dorsal extents, as well as common activation of the left TPJ and posterior cingulate. A direct comparison between self- and other judgments revealed that ventral mPFC as well as left ventrolateral PFC and left insula were more frequently activated by self-related judgments, whereas dorsal mPFC, in addition to bilateral TPJ and cuneus, was more frequently activated by other-related judgments. Logistic regression analyses revealed that ventral and dorsal mPFC lay at opposite ends of a functional gradient: The z coordinates reported in individual studies predicted whether the study involved self- or other-related judgments, which were associated with increasingly ventral or dorsal portions of mPFC, respectively. These results argue for a distributed rather than localizationist account of mPFC organization and support an emerging view on the functional heterogeneity of mPFC.