Abstract
Resting state vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) is related to difficulties in emotion regulation (ER). The prefrontal cortex (PFC) provides inhibitory control over the amygdala during ER. Previous studies linked vmHRV with activity in the ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) during implicit ER. To date no study examined the relation between vmHRV and brain activity during explicit ER. vmHRV was measured during a 7 min baseline at T1 2–5 days preceding T2. At T2 n = 24 participants (50% female, Mage = 24.6 years) viewed neutral or emotional pictures of pleasant or unpleasant valence and were instructed to intensify or to reduce their present emotion using two ER strategies (reappraisal and response modulation) or to passively view the picture. Participants rated the valence of their emotional state from pleasant to unpleasant after ER. Whole-brain fMRI data were collected using a 1.5-T-scanner. We observed an association between resting state vmHRV and brain activation in the PFC and the amygdala during ER of unpleasant emotions. Groups based on vmHRV showed significant differences in the modulation of amygdala activity as a function of ER strategy. In participants with high vmHRV amygdala activity was modulated only when using reappraisal and for low vmHRV participants only when using response modulation. Similar, dorsomedial PFC activity in high vmHRV participants was increased when using reappraisal and in low vmHRV participants when using response modulation to regulate unpleasant emotions. These results suggest that individuals with low vmHRV might have difficulties in recruiting prefrontal brain areas necessary for the modulation of amygdala activity during explicit ER.
Highlights
Emotion regulation (ER) can be defined as “the evocation of thoughts or behaviors that influence which emotions people have, when people have them, and how people experience or express these emotions” (Gross, 1998b)
Recent research suggests a relationship between brain activity and vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV), as higher resting state vmHRV is associated with stronger functional connectivity between the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) across younger and older adults (Sakaki et al, 2016)
The differentiation, between increasing and decreasing their negative states was more pronounced for high vmHRV participants when using reappraisal (increase > decrease; t(11) = 3.95, p = 0.002) but not when using response modulation (t(11) = 0.21, ns) and for low vmHRV participants when using response modulation (t(11) = 4.57, p = 0.001) but not when using reappraisal (t(11) = 0.95, ns)
Summary
Emotion regulation (ER) can be defined as “the evocation of thoughts or behaviors that influence which emotions people have, when people have them, and how people experience or express these emotions” (Gross, 1998b). In a series of studies on implicit (non-intentional) ER we have recently shown that (1) activity in ER related areas of the brain was positively correlated with coincident vmHRV when processing stimuli with its emotional significance in the attentional background (Lane et al, 2013); (2) that these relationships were absent in depression but increased and were similar to non-depressed controls after 12 week treatment with sertraline (Smith et al, 2014); and (3) that mPFC connectivity with the pons was negatively associated with depressive symptoms and positivity associated with coincident vmHRV when processing emotional stimuli with a non-emotional focus (Smith et al, 2015). These studies suggest that vmHRV and brain activity co-vary during implicit ER and that individual differences exist such that these associations are reduced or absent in persons with low vmHRV such as depressed patients (Kemp et al, 2010; Koenig et al, 2016)
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