Spontaneous and instructed regulation of negative emotion

1
Spontaneous and instructed regulation of negative
emotion Brent L. Hughes, Tor D. Wager, Matthew L.
Davidson, and Kevin N. Ochsner Department of
Psychology, Columbia University
324 Schermerhorn Hall Department of
Psychology 1190 Amsterdam Ave. New York, NY 10027
Download this poster http//www.columbia.edu/cu/p
sychology/tor/
RESULTS fMRI ACTIVITY
RESULTS REPORTED AFFECT
INTRODUCTION

• BACKGROUND
• The capacity to adaptively regulate emotion
  is essential for both mental and physical
  health
• Recent imaging research has identified
  regions of PFC important for the goal-directed,
  deliberate, voluntary reappraisal of aversive
  stimuli (Beauregard et al., 2001 Ochsner et al.,
  2002 Phan et al., 2004 Urry et al., 2006)
• Behavioral research (Erber, 1996) suggests
  that individuals also spontaneously regulate
  their emotion when faced with aversive
  situations, even when not explicitly directed to
  do so, but there are no brain-based studies of
  this.
• QUESTION
• In this study, we sought to identify common
  and distinct regions
• involved in the spontaneous and instructed
  regulation of emotion

Regions Involved in Spontaneous Regulation
Regions Involved in Instructed Regulation
Look Neg lt Look Neu BOLD
Figure 6. Ratings of negative affect showed that
reappraisal decreased negative affect reported in
response to photos.
SUMMARY and CONCLUSIONS
METHODS

• The Look Neg gt Look Neutral comparison showed
  increases in frontal, parietal, and insular
  cortices, amygdala, nucleus accumbens (NACC), and
  brainstem, and decreases in ventromedial frontal
  cortex, superior temporal cortices, and
  mid-cingulate. 
• Conjunction analyses revealed regions whose
  activity correlated with reduced affect,
  including the anterior insula/opercular junction,
  hippocampus, midbrain, Right IFG, DMPFC, dACC,
  and cerebellum. These regions may play roles in
  the appraisal process and/or internally guided
  interpretations of aversive pictures. Decreases
  in VMPFC and superior temporal cortex may relate
  to differences in the self-relevance of pictures,
  cognitive activity, or affective experience.
• To further constrain this hypothesis, we
  compared Look Neg activity with activity elicited
  by the voluntary reappraisal of negative affect. 
  Compared with viewing negative images,
  reappraising them (Reapp Neg gt Look Neg) further
  increased activity in a number of similar sites,
  including lateral and medial frontal cortices,
  ventral striatum, and thalamus.  Decreases were
  found in amygdala, parahippocampal cortex, and
  STS. Frontal activity was most strongly
  correlated with changes in affect reports. 
• DMPFC and right IFG showed activations and
  correlations with reduced affect reports in both
  free-viewing and instructed conditions. These
  regions are candidate regions for voluntary
  context-based control of appraisal.

• PARTICIPANTS
• n 36 participants, mean age 22 years
• SCAN ANALYSIS PARAMETERS
• EPI BOLD imaging on 1.5T GE (TR 2 s, 31 slices
  3.5 x 3.5 x 4.5 mm voxels).
• Pre-processing and 1st level analysis with SPM2
• 2nd-level analysis using robust regression to
  down-weight outliers (Wager et al., 2005)
• STIMULI
• Negative and neutral IAPS images
• TRIAL TYPES
• Reappraise Negative Images Instructed
  regulation
• Look at Negative Images Spontaneous
  responses, which could
• include regulation of emotion
• Look at Neutral Images Spontaneous responses
  to neutral events
• TRIAL STRUCTURE

2
2
1
1
Figure 4. Reapp Neg gt Look Neg Intersection with
Covariate (activation at p lt .05 FDR corrected (p
lt .004), AND correlated with reduced affect p lt
0.05)
Positive positive correlation with reductions
in affect
Positive positive correlation with reductions
in affect
Common Regions for Spontaneous and Instructed
Regulation
REFERENCES

• ANALYSIS PATHWAY
• Step 1 Used contrasts to identify regions (P lt
  .05 FDR) involved in
• 1. Spontaneous responses to images (Look Neg gt
  Look Neu)
• 2. Instructed reappraisal (Reapp Neg gt Look Neg)
• Step 2 Used whole brain regression analyses with
  self-reported affect as a covariate to
  identify regions
• Whose activation predicts drops in negative
  affect when Looking at Negative Images
• Whose activation predicts drops in negative
  affect during Reappraisal
• Step 3 Identified intersection of Steps 1 and 2
  (activated AND correlated).
• Step 4 Identified regions involved in both
  spontaneous and instructed regulation (P lt .1 FDR
  activation and p lt .05 correlation in 1 AND 2)
• (see Nichols et al., 2005 for details on
  conjunction analysis methods.)

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Reapp Neg gt Look Neg BOLD
Look Neg lt Look Neu BOLD
Temporal/ Occipital Cortex
R IFG