Abstract
Stress may impact the ability to effectively regulate emotions. To study the impact of stressful experiences in early and recent life on emotion regulation, we examined the relationship between early life stress, recent stress, and brain activation during cognitive reappraisal. We investigated two regulation goals: the decrease and increase of emotional response to both negative and positive stimuli. Furthermore, two models of stress consequences were examined: the cumulative and match/mismatch models. A total of 83 participants (Mage = 21.66) took part in the study. There was an interaction between cumulative stress and stimuli valence in the cuneus, superior lateral occipital cortex, superior parietal lobule, supramarginal gyrus extending to superior temporal gyrus, and precentral gyrus extending to supplementary motor area. Interaction between mismatched stress index and stimuli valence was found in the left hippocampus, left insula extending to the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala, and in a cluster including the anterior cingulate cortex, superior frontal gyrus, and frontal pole. Furthermore, there were differences between the effects of cumulative and mismatched stress indices on brain activation during reappraisal of positive but not negative stimuli. Results indicate that cumulative stress and match/mismatch approaches are both useful for explaining brain activation during reappraisal. This finding is important for our understanding of the multifaceted impact of stress on emotion regulation.
Highlights
Emotion regulation is the process of influencing the emo‐ tions one has, when one has them, and how one experiences and expresses them (Gross 1998)
McLaughlin et al (2015) examined the relationship between the occurrence of physical or sexual abuse in childhood and brain activ‐ ity during emotion regulation in adolescents. They found that early life stress was associated with increased bilateral activity of the superior frontal gyrus (SFG), frontal pole (FP), and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) during the decrease of emotional response to negative stimuli. These results indicate that adolescents who had experienced early life stress engage the prefrontal cortex (PFC) to a greater extent during reappraisal
Participants were selected from a community sample (N = 503) based on Early Life Stress Questionnaire (ELSQ) and Recent Life Changes Questionnaire (RLCQ) outcomes, as measures of early (ES) and recent (RS) life stress
Summary
Emotion regulation is the process of influencing the emo‐ tions one has, when one has them, and how one experiences and expresses them (Gross 1998). The process model of emotion regulation is based on cognitive theories of emo‐ tions and includes distinct emotion regulation processes (Gross 1998, 2015) One of these processes is cognitive reappraisal, which is a cognitive control process and refers to the reframing of a situation’s meaning in order to change the course of one’s emotions. Cognitive reappraisal is essential for minimizing the impact of stress; it may deter‐ mine the degree to which one is resilient or susceptible to stress (Wu et al 2013). Both acute and past stress may be associated with alterations in emotion regulation processes (Pechtel and Pizzagalli 2011; van Marle et al 2009).
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