A dynamic causal model on self-regulation of aversive emotion

Yang Yang,Yue Peng,Xiaofei Zhang,Jie Bai,Xiuya Lei

doi:10.1186/s40708-020-00122-0

Abstract

Cognitive regulation of emotion has been proven to be effective to take control the emotional responses. Some cognitive models have also been proposed to explain the neural mechanism that underlies this process. However, some characteristics of the models are still unclear, such as whether the cognitive regulation will be spontaneously employed by participants implicitly. The present study recruited the fMRI experiment to focus on the discomfort induced by viewing aversive pictures, and the emotional self-regulation during picture viewing. By using the dynamic causal modeling (DCM), 50 putative models of brain functional networks were constructed, one optimal model that fitted the real data best won the comparison from the candidates. As a result, the optimal model suggests that both the ventral striatum (VS)-centric bottom-up and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)-centric top-down regulations are recruited for self-regulation on negative emotions. The DLPFC will exert modulatory influence on the VS only when the VS fails to suppress the induced emotions by self-inhibition.

Highlights

Emotions are generally recognized as responses generated by the human organism, which are essential for the adaptation to changing environmental demands [1,2,3]
The results showed that the aversive images triggered stronger and broader activation in the posttest, while the neutral images only activated the visual cortex in the pre-test
Significant activations in the brain regions were observed in visual cortex, bilateral striatum, left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), superior temporal gyrus, postcentral gyrus, precentral gyrus, precuneus, and right middle temporal gyrus, cingulate gyrus

Summary

Introduction

Emotions are generally recognized as responses generated by the human organism, which are essential for the adaptation to changing environmental demands [1,2,3]. One important dimension of emotion regulation is the discrepancy between conscious (explicit) regulation and automatic (implicit) regulation. The former indicates cognitive manipulations guided by explicit intentions and accessible to one’s own awareness, while the latter conveys mental activities guided by implicit intentions or outside one’s awareness [23,24,25,26]. Both forms of regulation are critical, relatively fewer neurosciencebased studies addressed the latter issue [27]. Studies have shown that when participants are exposed to experimental stimuli for arousing corresponding emotions (e.g., a crying woman in a picture for awakening sympathy), and instructed by specific task requirements

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion