Philipp Kanske

How to Regulate Emotion? Neural Networks for Reappraisal and Distraction

The regulation of emotion is vital for adaptive behavior in a social environment. Different strategies may be adopted to achieve successful emotion regulation, ranging from attentional control (e.g., distraction) to cognitive change (e.g., reappraisal). However, there is only scarce evidence comparing the different regulation strategies with respect to their neural mechanisms and their effects on emotional experience. We, therefore, directly compared reappraisal and distraction in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with emotional pictures. In the distraction condition participants performed an arithmetic task, while they reinterpreted the emotional situation during reappraisal to downregulate emotional intensity. Both strategies were successful in reducing subjective emotional state ratings and lowered activity in the bilateral amygdala. Direct contrasts, however, showed a stronger decrease in amygdala activity for distraction when compared with reappraisal. While both strategies relied on common control areas in the medial and dorsolateral prefrontal and inferior parietal cortex, the orbitofrontal cortex was selectively activated for reappraisal. In contrast, the dorsal anterior cingulate and large clusters in the parietal cortex were active in the distraction condition. Functional connectivity patterns of the amygdala activation confirmed the roles of these specific activations for the 2 emotion regulation strategies.

Emotion triggers executive attention: Anterior cingulate cortex and amygdala responses to emotional words in a conflict task

Coherent behavior depends on attentional control that detects and resolves conflict between opposing actions. The current functional magnetic resonance imaging study tested the hypothesis that emotion triggers attentional control to speed up conflict processing in particularly salient situations. Therefore, we presented emotionally negative and neutral words in a version of the flanker task. In response to conflict, we found activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and of the amygdala for emotional stimuli. When emotion and conflict coincided, a region in the ventral ACC was activated, which resulted in faster conflict processing in reaction times. Emotion also increased functional connectivity between the ventral ACC and activation of the dorsal ACC and the amygdala in conflict trials. These data suggest that the ventral ACC integrates emotion and conflict and prioritizes the processing of conflict in emotional trials. This adaptive mechanism ensures rapid detection and resolution of conflict in potentially threatening situations signaled by emotional stimuli. Hum Brain Mapp, 2011.

Emotion Speeds up Conflict Resolution: A New Role for the Ventral Anterior Cingulate Cortex?

It has been hypothesized that processing of conflict is facilitated by emotion. Emotional stimuli signal significance in a situation. Thus, when an emotional stimulus is task relevant, more resources may be devoted to conflict processing to reduce the time that an organism is unable to act. In the present electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, we employed a conflict task and manipulated the emotional content and prosody of auditory target stimuli. In line with our hypothesis, reaction times revealed faster conflict resolution for emotional stimuli. Early stages of event-related potential conflict processing were modulated by emotion as indexed in an enhanced frontocentral negativity at 420 ms. FMRI yielded conflict activation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), a crucial part of the executive control network. The right ventral ACC (vACC) was activated for conflict processing in emotional stimuli, suggesting that it is additionally activated for conflict processing in emotional stimuli. The amygdala was also activated by emotion. Furthermore, emotion increased functional connectivity between the vACC and activity in the amygdala and the dACC. The results support the hypothesis that emotion speeds up conflict processing and suggest a new role for the vACC in processing conflict in particularly significant situations signaled by emotion.

Neural correlates of emotion regulation deficits in remitted depression: The influence of regulation strategy, habitual regulation use, and emotional valence

Regulating emotions through reappraisal has been shown to elicit abnormal neural activation patterns in currently depressed patients. It is, however, unclear if this deficit generalizes to other emotion regulation strategies, if it persists when patients recover, and if it is related to habitual use of reappraisal strategies. Therefore, we measured the neural responses to emotional images with functional magnetic resonance imaging in remitted patients with previous episodes of major depression and healthy controls. While viewing the images participants regulated the elicited emotions using either a reappraisal or a distraction strategy. Habitual reappraisal use was measured with the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Depressed patients showed a selective deficit in down-regulating amygdala responses to negative emotional stimuli using reappraisal. This down-regulation of amygdala activity was strongest in participants high in habitual reappraisal use. Activity in the regulating control-network including anterior cingulate and lateral orbitofrontal cortex was increased during both emotion regulation strategies. The findings in remitted patients with previous episodes of major depression suggest that altered emotion regulation is a trait-marker for depression. This interpretation is supported by the relation of habitual reappraisal use to amygdala down-regulation success.

Modulation of early conflict processing: N200 responses to emotional words in a flanker task.

Recent evidence shows that emotion can facilitate the processing of conflict. This effect is subserved by a neural network including the ventral and dorsal portions of the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala. However, the time course of emotional modulation of conflict processing is unknown. Therefore, we presented emotional and neutral words in a version of the flanker task and recorded event-related brain potentials (ERP). Reaction times replicated accelerated conflict processing in emotional compared to neutral trials. We also observed a conflict-related negativity at 200 ms after stimulus onset. Interestingly, this N200 amplitude difference was enhanced in emotional trials. These data indicate an early influence of emotion on the processing of conflict. Such an adaptive mechanism ensures rapid resolution of conflict in potentially threatening situations.

Leipzig Affective Norms for German: a reliability study.

To facilitate investigations of verbal emotional processing, we introduce the Leipzig Affective Norms for German (LANG), a list of 1,000 German nouns that have been rated for emotional valence, arousal, and concreteness. A critical factor regarding the quality of normative word data is their reliability. We therefore acquired ratings from a sample that was tested twice, with an interval of 2 years, to calculate test—retest reliability. Furthermore, we recruited a second sample to test reliability across independent samples. The results show (1) the typical quadratic relation of valence and arousal, replicating previous data, (2) very high test—retest reliability (>.95), and (3) high correlations between the two samples (>.85). Because the range of ratings was also very high, we provide a comprehensive set of words with reliable affective norms, which makes it possible to select highly controlled subsamples varying in emotional status. The database is available as a supplement for this article at http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

On the Influence of Emotion on Conflict Processing

The ability to show coherent goal-directed behavior, even in the presence of distraction, requires the detection and resolution of conflict, for example between opposing action tendencies. This defining feature of cognitive control has been extensively studied with experimental tasks like the Stroop, Simon, or Flanker paradigm (Stroop, 1935; Simon and Rudell, 1967; Eriksen and Eriksen, 1974), which also yielded the description of an underlying neural network for conflict detection and resolution (Fan et al., 2003; Ridderinkhof et al., 2004). Understanding the influence of emotion on this system is particularly important because they are intrinsically tied to one another in real life (Pessoa, 2008). Recent evidence seems to be contradictory with reports of facilitation and impairment effects of emotion on the processing of conflict. On a conceptual basis both accounts can be supported. It may be argued that keeping up goal-directed behavior is especially difficult in emotional situations because of their greater distracting potential. On the other hand, emotional stimuli are also signals of relevance for a situation that might require particularly efficient cognitive control (Scherer, 1994). In line with this latter view, Norman and Shallice (1986) suggested that emotion, along with other instances like novelty or error commitment, might trigger cognitive control processes. The present opinion article aims at elucidating these diverging views by specifying two critical factors – task relevance and individual differences – that result in an enhancing or hindering influence of emotion on the processing of conflict.

Conflict processing is modulated by positive emotion: ERP data from a flanker task.

Recent evidence shows that negative emotional stimuli speed up the resolution of conflict between opposing response tendencies. This mechanism ensures rapid reactions in potentially threatening situations. However, it is unclear whether positive emotion has a similar effect on conflict processing. We therefore presented positive emotional words in a version of the flanker conflict task, in which conflict is elicited by incongruent target and flanker stimuli. Response times to incongruent stimuli were shortened in positive words, indicating a speeding up of conflict resolution. We also observed an enlargement of the first conflict-sensitive event-related potential (ERP) of the electroencephalogram, the N200, in positive emotional trials. The data suggest that positive emotion already modulates first stages of conflict processing. The results demonstrate that positive, reward-predicting stimuli influence conflict processing in a similar manner to threat signals. Positive emotion thus reduces the time that an organism is unable to respond due to simultaneously present conflicting action tendencies.

Deficient modulation of pain by a positive emotional context in fibromyalgia patients

Summary Fibromyalgia patients show impaired emotion recognition and orientation when positive pictures are presented together with painful stimuli. Treatment approaches should emphasize the normalization of these disrupted emotional processes. ABSTRACT This study aimed to investigate the modulating effects of emotional context on pain perception in 16 patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) and 16 healthy control (HC) subjects. An infrared laser was used to apply individually adapted painful stimuli to the dorsum of the left hand. The emotional background of the painful stimuli was modulated by concurrent presentations of negative, neutral, and positive picture stimuli selected from the International Affective Picture System. As control conditions, painful stimuli and the pictures were also presented by themselves. During each of the 5 laser‐picture trials, subjects received 10 painful stimuli and were asked to rate the average intensity and unpleasantness of the experienced pain. Functional magnetic resonance images were obtained, using a T2* sensitive echo planar sequence. HC subjects showed a linear increase in pain intensity and unpleasantness ratings when painful stimuli were presented during positive, neutral, and negative pictures. In contrast, FMS patients showed a quadratic trend for pain intensity ratings indicating a lack of pain reduction by the positive pictures. In addition, the FMS patients showed less activation in secondary somatosensory cortex, insula, orbitofrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex during the positive picture pain trials. Our results suggest that fibromyalgia patients are less efficient in modulating pain by positive affect and may benefit less from appetitive events than healthy control subjects.

Effortful control, depression, and anxiety correlate with the influence of emotion on executive attentional control.

Recent evidence confirms that emotion can trigger executive attentional control. Participants resolve conflict faster when encountering emotionally negative or positive stimuli. This effect is accompanied by an enlarged conflict negativity in event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and activation of the ventral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in fMRI. Here, we tested whether temperament (the trait effortful control) and subclinical factors (anxiety, depression) can influence the emotional modulation of executive attention. These factors correlated with conflict processing in six experiments that utilized different conflict tasks (flanker, Simon) and different types of emotional stimuli (visual, auditory). Participants high in effortful control and low in anxiety and depression responded faster to conflict processing in emotional stimuli, showed an enhanced ERP conflict negativity, and additional activation in the ventral ACC. The data show that temperamental effortful control, depression, and anxiety are related to the influence of emotion on executive attention and its underlying neural correlates.