Brain Imaging Investigation of the Neural Correlates of Emotion Regulation

Summary

We present a protocol that allows investigation of the neural correlates of deliberate and automatic emotion regulation, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. This protocol can be used in healthy participants, both young and older, as well as in clinical patients.

Abstract

The ability to control/regulate emotions is an important coping mechanism in the face of emotionally stressful situations. Although significant progress has been made in understanding conscious/deliberate emotion regulation (ER), less is known about non-conscious/automatic ER and the associated neural correlates. This is in part due to the problems inherent in the unitary concepts of automatic and conscious processing¹. Here, we present a protocol that allows investigation of the neural correlates of both deliberate and automatic ER using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This protocol allows new avenues of inquiry into various aspects of ER. For instance, the experimental design allows manipulation of the goal to regulate emotion (conscious vs. non-conscious), as well as the intensity of the emotional challenge (high vs. low). Moreover, it allows investigation of both immediate (emotion perception) and long-term effects (emotional memory) of ER strategies on emotion processing. Therefore, this protocol may contribute to better understanding of the neural mechanisms of emotion regulation in healthy behaviour, and to gaining insight into possible causes of deficits in depression and anxiety disorders in which emotion dysregulation is often among the core debilitating features.

Protocol

1. Task Design, Stimuli, and Experimental Protocol

The overarching protocol involves assessments of emotional ratings of pictures (immediate impact), and of the memory for
these pictures (long-term impact), as a result of inducing the goal to regulate emotional responses. The goal to regulate is induced explicitly or implicitly, and the immediate and long-term impact is assessed relative to ratings of and memory for pictures presented during baseline blocks/runs that precede the ER manipulations (pre-ER induction baseline); see Figure 1 for a diagram of the overall experimental design. Below we provid....

Discussion

We described a protocol that involves explicit and implicit manipulation of the goal to regulate emotion, and allows investigation of the associated neural correlates. This design has the potential to advance our knowledge of how the brain regulates emotions, being well suited for comparisons of explicit ER to implicit ER, which is unintentional and can happen without participant's insight and awareness^13,14. Hence, the protocol can be particularly useful for investigations of habitual opposite affective biase.......