Neural Networks and Emotion Regulation

Abstract

Many forms of psychopathology are characterized around failures to adaptively regulate emotional responses, with consequences ranging from personal distress to socially maladaptive and self-destructive behavior. In fact, by one count, over half of the non-substance-related Axis I clinical disorders and all of the Axis II personality disorders involve some form of emotion dysregulation. Therefore, for the practicing clinician, understanding how the brain regulates, or fails to regulate, emotional responsivity can offer important insights into the development of effective treatment protocols for a wide variety of disorders. Research suggests that both of these forms of emotionregulation depend upon interactions between prefrontal and cingulate control systems and cortical and subcortical emotion-generative systems. Network models hypothesize that emotions are valence responses to either external stimuli and/or internal mental representations.