Emotion regulation: a study of electroencephalographic correlates

Abstract

Effective emotion regulation is associated with improved subjective well-being, mental health, and social goal attainment. Poor psychosocial well-being, depression, and psychiatric disorders are often associated with the inability to regulate emotions. Cognitive reappraisal, which focuses on events, and expressive suppression, which is reaction-oriented, have both garnered significant attention in psychophysiological studies as effective strategies for emotion regulation. Cognitive reappraisal focuses on changing the meaning of a situation, while suppression occurs later in the emotional experience, when efforts are made to suppress the behavioral and physiological responses associated with ongoing emotions [1]. Suppression regulates emotions for a shorter period, while reappraisal has a long-term effect on emotion regulation. While somatovegetative markers of emotion regulation have been thoroughly investigated [2, 3], further research is needed to explore the brain correlates of this process. Our aim was to examine the electroencephalographic (EEG) correlates of emotion regulation. For this study, we computed correlations between subjects or inter-subject correlation (ISC; an indicator of attention, engagement, and tension [4]) and EEG valence and arousal indices [5] (64 leads in total). Sixty participants (average age=26.0) either suppressed their emotional responses, employed reappraisal, or viewed neutral 1-minute videos with negative content (36 trials in total). Both suppression and reappraisal elicited higher levels of ISC compared to viewing negative or neutral videos (F(3, 168)=25.23, p 0.001, η²=0.10). The pairwise comparisons revealed that viewing neutral videos resulted in lower ISC than viewing negative videos (t(56)=4.26, p 0.001, d=0.47), suppression (t(56)=9.04, p 0.001, d=0.78), and reappraisal (t(56)=11.0, p 0.0001, d=0.77). Both suppression and reappraisal resulted in higher ISC compared to watching negative videos (t(56)=3.38, p=0.002, d=0.40 and t(56)=2.96, p=0.005, d=0.39, 1-β=0.83, respectively). It suggests a need for task engagement and feedback processing to manage emotion. Additionally, the arousal index was greater in all negative conditions, suggesting that regulation necessitated a specific level of arousal (χ2(3)=12.8, p=0.005, W=0.075). Wilcoxon’s tests revealed a significant decrease in arousal index when viewing neutral videos compared to negative ones (V=465, p=0.012, r=0.053). Conversely, suppressing (V=499, p=0.019, r=0.057) and reappraisal (V=395, p=0.004, r=0.096) elicited higher levels of arousal. Thirdly, the EEG valence index exhibited elevated levels in both emotions regulation states compared to the neutral state (χ2(3)=10.5, p=0.015, W=0.061). Furthermore, the Wilcoxon tests revealed that the valence index was reduced when watching neutral videos in comparison to suppression (V=525, p=0.048, r=0.136) and reappraisal (V=500, p=0.048, r=0.165). This suggests an upsurge in the positive emotional aspect when regulating emotions. Overall, various EEG measurements reflect distinct aspects of emotion regulation, although both suppression and cognitive reassessment induced greater brain resource allocation than passive viewing.