Jamie Ferri

Working memory load reduces the late positive potential and this effect is attenuated with increasing anxiety

Emotion regulation decreases the processing of arousing stimuli, as indexed by the late positive potential (LPP), an electrocortical component that varies in amplitude with emotional arousal. Emotion regulation increases activity in the prefrontal areas associated with cognitive control, including the dosolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The present study manipulated working memory load, known to activate the DLPFC, and recorded the LPP elicited by aversive and neutral IAPS pictures presented during the retention interval. The LPP was larger on low-load compared to high-load trials, and on trials with aversive compared to neutral pictures. These LPP data suggest that emotional content and working memory load have opposing effects on attention to distracting stimuli. State anxiety was associated with reduced modulation of the LPP by working memory load. Results are discussed in terms of competition for attention between emotion and cognition and suggest a relationship between DLPFC activation and the allocation of attentional resources to distracting visual stimuli–a relationship that may be disrupted with increasing anxiety.

Genetics of emotion regulation

Emotions can be powerful drivers of behavior that may be adaptive or maladaptive for the individual. Thus, the ability to alter ones emotions, to regulate them, should be beneficial to an individuals success of survival and fitness. What is the biological basis of this ability? And what are the biological mechanisms that impart individual differences in the ability to regulate emotion? In this article, we will first introduce readers to the construct of emotion regulation, and the various strategies that individuals may utilize to regulate their emotions. We will then point to evidence that suggests genetic contributions (alongside environmental contributions) to individual differences in emotion regulation. To date, efforts to identify specific genetic mechanisms involved in emotion regulation have focused on common gene variants (i.e. variants that exist in >1% of the population, referred to as polymorphisms) and their association with specific emotion regulation strategies or the neural substrate mediating these strategies. We will discuss these efforts, and conclude with a call to expand the set of experimental paradigms and putative molecular mechanisms, in order to significantly advance our understanding of the molecular mechanisms by which genes are involved in emotion regulation.

Load response functions in the human spatial working memory circuit during location memory updating.

Previous studies have emphasized that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is important for manipulating information in working memory, although activations in other frontal and parietal areas are commonly observed under the same conditions. We conducted an fMRI experiment to examine brain responses as a parametric function of memory updating, which is considered as an elemental process in working memory. In a variant spatial delayed-response task, human subjects performed updating operations over a 9-second delay period, during which they mentally transform the location of a memorized target in a 4 by 4 grid according to 3 to 12 instruction cues. Activity increased monotonically with increasing updating load in numerous cortical and subcortical regions including the rostrodorsal premotor (rdPM), lateral precentral sulcus, lateral prefrontal, posterior associative, striatal and cerebellar areas. The rdPM and superior parietal were particularly sensitive to the updating manipulation. There were several main findings. First, updating spatial working memory involved mostly the same cortical and subcortical regions that were activated during maintenance of spatial information. Second, the updating load response functions of regions in the spatial working memory circuit showed a strong linear component. However, none shows significant increases in activity from 9 to 12 updating operations. Third, activity in the right rdPM and anterior inferior frontal gyrus correlated positively with working memory performance in the high updating load condition. Our findings suggest that updating and maintenance of spatial information may share similar processes and that the rostrodorsal premotor cortex and anterior inferior frontal gyrus may be important for the success of tracking spatial information in working memory.

Neural correlates of attentional deployment within unpleasant pictures.

Attentional deployment is an emotion regulation strategy that involves shifting attentional focus towards or away from particular aspects of emotional stimuli. Previous studies have highlighted the prevalence of attentional deployment and demonstrated that it can have a significant impact on brain activity and behavior. However, little is known about the neural correlates of this strategy. The goal of the present studies was to examine the effect of attentional deployment on neural activity by directing attention to more or less arousing portions of unpleasant images. In Studies 1 and 2, participants passively viewed counterbalanced blocks of unpleasant images without a focus, unpleasant images with an arousing focus, unpleasant images with a non-arousing focus, neutral images without a focus, and neutral images with a non-arousing focus for 4000 ms each. In Study 2, eye-tracking data were collected on all participants during image acquisition. In both studies, affect ratings following each block indicated that participants felt significantly less negative affect after viewing unpleasant images with a non-arousing focus compared to unpleasant images with an arousing focus. In both studies, the unpleasant non-arousing focus condition compared to the unpleasant arousing focus condition was associated with increased activity in frontal and parietal regions implicated in inhibitory control and visual attention. In Study 2, the unpleasant non-arousing focus condition compared to the unpleasant arousing focus condition was associated with reduced activity in the amygdala and visual cortex. Collectively these data suggest that attending to a non-arousing portion of an unpleasant image successfully reduces subjective negative affect and recruits fronto-parietal networks implicated in inhibitory control. Moreover, when ensuring task compliance by monitoring eye movements, attentional deployment modulates amygdala activity.

I see people: The presence of human faces impacts the processing of complex emotional stimuli

Both emotional images and human faces are particularly salient compared to other categories of visual stimuli. The late positive potential (LPP) is larger for emotional than neutral images, and some evidence suggests that the LPP is further enhanced for images containing people. Studies of emotion frequently compare pleasant and unpleasant IAPS pictures to neutral, without an explicit understanding of how the presence of faces in these images may affect attentional allocation and psychophysiological response. The present experiment examined the effect of faces on the LPP elicited by neutral and threatening IAPS images. The LPP was enhanced by faces in neutral images, but no difference was observed between threatening images with and without faces. These results demonstrate that the inclusion of faces in IAPS images significantly impacts the LPP; however, this effect is unique to neutral images.

Resting-state thalamic dysconnectivity in schizophrenia and relationships with symptoms

BACKGROUND Schizophrenia (SZ) is a severe neuropsychiatric disorder associated with disrupted connectivity within the thalamic-cortico-cerebellar network. Resting-state functional connectivity studies have reported thalamic hypoconnectivity with the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex as well as thalamic hyperconnectivity with sensory cortical regions in SZ patients compared with healthy comparison participants (HCs). However, fundamental questions remain regarding the clinical significance of these connectivity abnormalities. METHOD Resting state seed-based functional connectivity was used to investigate thalamus to whole brain connectivity using multi-site data including 183 SZ patients and 178 matched HCs. Statistical significance was based on a voxel-level FWE-corrected height threshold of p < 0.001. The relationships between positive and negative symptoms of SZ and regions of the brain demonstrating group differences in thalamic connectivity were examined. RESULTS HC and SZ participants both demonstrated widespread positive connectivity between the thalamus and cortical regions. Compared with HCs, SZ patients had reduced thalamic connectivity with bilateral cerebellum and anterior cingulate cortex. In contrast, SZ patients had greater thalamic connectivity with multiple sensory-motor regions, including bilateral pre- and post-central gyrus, middle/inferior occipital gyrus, and middle/superior temporal gyrus. Thalamus to middle temporal gyrus connectivity was positively correlated with hallucinations and delusions, while thalamus to cerebellar connectivity was negatively correlated with delusions and bizarre behavior. CONCLUSIONS Thalamic hyperconnectivity with sensory regions and hypoconnectivity with cerebellar regions in combination with their relationship to clinical features of SZ suggest that thalamic dysconnectivity may be a core neurobiological feature of SZ that underpins positive symptoms.

Blunted amygdala activity is associated with depression severity in treatment-resistant depression

Up to 50% of individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) do not recover after two antidepressant medication trials, and therefore meet the criteria for treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is one promising treatment; however, the extent to which MBCT influences clinical outcomes relative to baseline neural activation remains unknown. In the present study we investigated baseline differences in amygdala activation between TRD patients and healthy controls (HCs), related amygdala activation to depression symptoms, and examined the impacts of MBCT and amygdala activation on longitudinal depression outcomes. At baseline, TRD patients (n = 80) and HCs (n = 37) participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging task in which they identified either the emotion (affect labeling) or the gender (gender labeling) of faces, or passively viewed faces (observing). The TRD participants then completed eight weeks of MBCT or a health enhancement program (HEP). Relative to HCs, the TRD patients demonstrated less amygdala activation during affect labeling, and marginally less during gender labeling. Blunted amygdala activation in TRD patients during affect labeling was associated with greater depression severity. MBCT was associated with greater depression reductions than was HEP directly following treatment; however, at 52 weeks the treatment effect was not significant, and baseline amygdala activation across the task conditions predicted depression severity in both groups. TRD patients have blunted amygdala responses during affect labeling that are associated with greater concurrent depression. Furthermore, although MBCT produced greater short-term improvements in depression than did HEP, overall baseline amygdala reactivity was predictive of long-term clinical outcomes in both groups.