Trait Worry and Neural Correlates of Emotion Regulation

2017 ◽  
Vol 225 (3) ◽  
pp. 214-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Kristin Neudert ◽  
Rudolf Stark ◽  
Laura Kress ◽  
Andrea Hermann
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Cognitive Reappraisal ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Negative Feelings ◽  
Healthy Females

Abstract. Pathological worrying is of high transdiagnostic relevance and is related to maladaptive emotion regulation processes. Dysfunctional emotion regulation and its underlying neural mechanisms might contribute to the maintenance of fear over time. Therefore, this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study aims at investigating the association of trait worry with neural correlates of emotion regulation. Twenty-six healthy females were instructed to passively look at aversive pictures, to distract themselves with a neutral thought, or to down- and up-regulate negative feelings via cognitive reappraisal in response to repeatedly presented aversive pictures. Trait worry was not related to cognitive reappraisal but to distraction, which leads to a greater reduction of self-reported negative feelings and insula activation in individuals with higher trait worry. The current study indicates that the neural mechanisms underlying distraction seem to be altered in pathological worrying and may prevent adaptive emotional processing of aversive stimuli leading to the maintenance of fear.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of beauty retouching to enhance attractiveness of self-depictions in women

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chisa Ota ◽  
Tamami Nakano
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Facial Attractiveness ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Amygdala Activity ◽  
Increased Activity

AbstractBeauty filters, while often employed for retouching photos to appear more attractive on social media, when used in excess cause images to give a distorted impression. The neural mechanisms underlying this change in facial attractiveness according to beauty retouching level remain unknown. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging in women as they viewed photos of their own face or unknown faces that had been retouched at three levels: no, mild, and extreme. The activity in the nucleus accumbens (NA) exhibited a positive correlation with facial attractiveness, whereas amygdala activity showed a negative correlation with attractiveness. Even though the participants rated others’ faces as more attractive than their own, the NA showed increased activity only for their mildly retouched own face and the amygdala exhibited greater activation in the others’ faces condition than the own face condition. Moreover, amygdala activity was greater for extremely retouched faces than for unretouched or mildly retouched faces for both conditions. Frontotemporal and cortical midline areas showed greater activation for one’s own than others’ faces, but such self-related activation was absent when extremely retouched. These results suggest that neural activity dynamically switches between the NA and amygdala according to perceived attractiveness of one’s face.

The narcissistic self and its psychological and neural correlates: an exploratory fMRI study

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (8) ◽  
pp. 1641-1650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Fan ◽  
C. Wonneberger ◽  
B. Enzi ◽  
M. de Greck ◽  
C. Ulrich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Healthy Subjects ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Anterior Insula ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Neuroimaging Data ◽  
Neural Underpinnings ◽  
The Right ◽  
First Time

BackgroundThe concept of narcissism has been much researched in psychoanalysis and especially in self psychology. One of the hallmarks of narcissism is altered emotion, including decreased affective resonance (e.g. empathy) with others, the neural underpinnings of which remain unclear. The aim of our exploratory study was to investigate the psychological and neural correlates of empathy in two groups of healthy subjects with high and low narcissistic personality trait. We hypothesized that high narcissistic subjects would show a differential activity pattern in regions such as the anterior insula that are typically associated with empathy.MethodA sample of 34 non-clinical subjects was divided into high (n=11) and low (n=11) narcissistic groups according to the 66th and 33rd percentiles of their scores on the Narcissism Inventory (NI). Combining the psychological, behavioral and neuronal [i.e. functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)] measurements of empathy, we compared the high and low narcissistic groups of subjects.ResultsHigh narcissistic subjects showed higher scores on the Symptom Checklist-90 – Revised (SCL-90-R) and the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) when compared to low narcissistic subjects. High narcissistic subjects also showed significantly decreased deactivation during empathy, especially in the right anterior insula.ConclusionsPsychological and neuroimaging data indicate respectively higher degrees of alexithymia and lower deactivation during empathy in the insula in high narcissistic subjects. Taken together, our preliminary findings demonstrate, for the first time, psychological and neuronal correlates of narcissism in non-clinical subjects. This might stipulate both novel psychodynamic conceptualization and future psychological–neuronal investigation of narcissism.

scholarly journals Increased Amygdala Activations during the Emotional Experience of Death-Related Pictures in Complicated Grief: An fMRI Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 851 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Fernández-Alcántara ◽  
Juan Verdejo-Román ◽  
Francisco Cruz-Quintana ◽  
Miguel Pérez-García ◽  
Andrés Catena-Martínez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Complicated Grief ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Lower Activation ◽  
Positive Valence ◽  
Image Type

Complicated grief (CG) is associated with alterations in various components of emotional processing. The main aim of this study was to identify brain activations in individuals diagnosed with CG while they were observing positive, negative, and death-related pictures. The participants included 19 individuals with CG and 19 healthy non-bereaved (NB) individuals. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans were obtained during an emotional experience task. The perception of death-related pictures differed between the CG group and the NB group, with a greater activation in the former of the amygdala, putamen, hypothalamus, middle frontal gyrus, and anterior cingulate cortex. Amygdala and putamen activations were significantly correlated with Texas Revised Inventory of Grief scores in the CG group, suggesting that the higher level of grief in this group was associated with a greater activation in both brain areas while watching death-related pictures. A significant interaction between image type and group was observed in the amygdala, midbrain, periaqueductal gray, cerebellum, and hippocampus, largely driven by the greater activation of these areas in the CG group when watching death-related pictures and the lower activation when watching positive-valence pictures. In this study, individuals with CG showed significantly distinct brain activations in response to different emotional images.

Control of Voluntary and Involuntary Nerve Impulses for Hemiparesis Rehabilitation and MRI Study

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Lacey ◽  
Vasiliy Buharin ◽  
Melih Turkseven ◽  
Minoru Shinohara ◽  
Jun Ueda
Keyword(s):  
Time Window ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Nerve Impulses ◽  
Long Latency ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Intention To Move ◽  
Mri Study ◽  
Facilitation Techniques

In order for stroke victims to gain functional recovery of their hemiparetic limbs, facilitation techniques such as the repetitive facilitation exercise, or RFE, have been developed. Currently, there is a lack of understanding of the neural mechanisms associated with these types of facilitation techniques. To better understand the neural mechanisms associated with the RFE a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study should be conducted. This paper presents initial experimental results testing the feasibility of implementing an fMRI-compatible actuator to facilitate a myotatic reflex in synchronization with the patient’s intention to move the hemiparetic limb. Preliminary data from a healthy individual demonstrated the feasibility of overlapping the long latency component of the afferent myotatic reflex with descending nerve impulses in a time window of 15ms. In addition, to implement the RFE into an fMRI-compatible device, a pneumatic actuation time delay due to long transmission line was evaluated. The results may be used for the assessment of the RFE using an fMRI-compatible robotic device in the future.

scholarly journals Rethinking Feelings: An fMRI Study of the Cognitive Regulation of Emotion

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 1215-1229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin N. Ochsner ◽  
Silvia A. Bunge ◽  
James J. Gross ◽  
John D. E. Gabrieli
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Aversive Events ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Regulation Of Emotion ◽  
Mental And Physical Health

The ability to cognitively regulate emotional responses to aversive events is important for mental and physical health. Little is known, however, about neural bases of the cognitive control of emotion. The present study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural systems used to reappraise highly negative scenes in unemotional terms. Reappraisal of highly negative scenes reduced subjective experience of negative affect. Neural correlates of reappraisal were increased activation of the lateral and medial prefrontal regions and decreased activation of the amygdala and medial orbito-frontal cortex. These findings support the hypothesis that prefrontal cortex is involved in constructing reappraisal strategies that can modulate activity in multiple emotion-processing systems.

scholarly journals Targeting working memory to modify emotional reactivity in adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Kaiser ◽  
Liesbeth Reneman ◽  
Paul J. Lucassen ◽  
Taco J. de Vries ◽  
Anouk Schrantee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Adult Adhd ◽  
Emotional Reactivity ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Hyperactivity Disorder

AbstractUnderstanding the neural mechanisms of emotional reactivity in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) may help develop more effective treatments that target emotion dysregulation. In adult ADHD, emotion regulation problems cover a range of dimensions, including emotional reactivity (ER). One important process that could underlie an impaired ER in ADHD might be impaired working memory (WM) processing. We recently demonstrated that taxing WM prior to the exposure of emotionally salient stimuli reduced physiological and subjective reactivity to such cues in heavy drinkers, suggesting lasting effects of WM activation on ER. Here, we investigated neural mechanisms that could underlie the interaction between WM and ER in adult ADHD participants. We included 30 male ADHD participants and 30 matched controls. Participants performed a novel functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm in which active WM-blocks were alternated with passive blocks of negative and neutral images. We demonstrated group-independent significant main effects of negative emotional images on amygdala activation, and WM-load on paracingulate gyrus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation. Contrary to earlier reports in adolescent ADHD, no impairments were found in neural correlates of WM or ER. Moreover, taxing WM did not alter the neural correlates of ER in either ADHD or control participants. While we did find effects on the amygdala, paCG, and dlPFC activation, we did not find interactions between WM and ER, possibly due to the relatively unimpaired ADHD population and a well-matched control group. Whether targeting WM might be effective in participants with ADHD with severe ER impairments remains to be investigated.

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