Neural circuits of emotion regulation: a comparison of mindfulness-based and cognitive reappraisal strategies

Dealing with one's emotions is a core skill in everyday life. Effective cognitive control strategies have been shown to be neurobiologically represented in prefrontal structures regulating limbic regions. In addition to cognitive strategies, mindfulness-associated methods are increasingly applied in psychotherapy. We compared the neurobiological mechanisms of these two strategies, i.e. cognitive reappraisal and mindfulness, during both the cued expectation and perception of negative and potentially negative emotional pictures. Fifty-three healthy participants were examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging (47 participants included in analysis). Twenty-four subjects applied mindfulness, 23 used cognitive reappraisal. On the neurofunctional level, both strategies were associated with comparable activity of the medial prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. When expecting negative versus neutral stimuli, the mindfulness group showed stronger activations in ventro- and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, supramarginal gyrus as well as in the left insula. During the perception of negative versus neutral stimuli, the two groups only differed in an increased activity in the caudate in the cognitive group. Altogether, both strategies recruited overlapping brain regions known to be involved in emotion regulation. This result suggests that common neural circuits are involved in the emotion regulation by mindfulness-based and cognitive reappraisal strategies. Identifying differential activations being associated with the two strategies in this study might be one step towards a better understanding of differential mechanisms of change underlying frequently used psychotherapeutic interventions.

Emotional processing in a ten-session general psychiatric treatment for borderline personality disorder: a case study

This study examines the effects of a borderline-specific treatment, called general psychiatric management, on emotional change, outcome and therapeutic alliance of an outpatient presenting with borderline personality disorder. Based on the sequential model of emotional processing, emotional states were assessed in a 10-session setting. The case showed an increase in expressions of distress and no change in therapeutic alliance and tended towards general deterioration. Results suggest emotional processing may play a lesser role in general psychiatric management in early phase treatment than previously hypothezised.

In human basophils, IL-3 selectively induces RANKL expression that is modulated by IgER-dependent and IgER-independent stimuli

BACKGROUND Receptor activator of NF-κB ligand (RANKL) is expressed as either surface (hRANKL1, hRANKL2) or soluble (hRANKL3) form. RANKL is involved in multifaceted processes of immunoregulation and bone resorption such as they occur in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Interestingly, activated basophils, which are effector cells in allergic inflammation, contribute to the progress of collagen-induced arthritis (CIA), a mouse model for RA. Here, we investigate under which conditions human basophils express RANKL. METHODS Among other stimuli, basophils were cultured with IL-3 alone. Alternatively, as a secondary stimulus, IgER-dependent or IgER-independent agents were added simultaneously either with IL-3 or after prolonged IL-3 culturing. Expression of RANKL protein and mRNA was analyzed by flow cytometry, ELISA, and real-time PCR. A coculture system was applied to investigate biological activity of basophil-derived RANKL. RESULTS We show that in human basophils, IL-3 but no other stimulus induces de novo expression of soluble and surface RANKL, of which the latter enhances survival of MoDC. Upon simultaneous stimulation, IgER cross-linking reduces surface RANKL expression, while IgER-independent stimuli have no effect. This is in contrast to consecutive stimulation, as triggering with both IgER-dependent and IgER-independent stimuli enhances RANKL expression, particularly in its soluble form. Real-time PCR analysis shows that RANKL expression is mainly regulated at the mRNA level. CONCLUSION This study identifies IL-3 as a potent inducer of RANKL expression in human basophils, suggesting them to interact with bone physiology and activation of immune cells. IgER-dependent and IgER-independent stimuli modulate the IL-3-mediated RANKL expression in a time- and stimulus-dependent fashion.

Neglect and Motion Stimuli - Insights from a Touchscreen-Based Cancellation Task

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: In stroke patients, neglect diagnostic is often performed by means of paper-pencil cancellation tasks. These tasks entail static stimuli, and provide no information concerning possible changes in the severity of neglect symptoms when patients are confronted with motion. We therefore aimed to directly contrast the cancellation behaviour of neglect patients under static and dynamic conditions. Since visual field deficits often occur in neglect patients, we analysed whether the integrity of the optic radiation would influence cancellation behaviour. METHODS: Twenty-five patients with left spatial neglect after right-hemispheric stroke were tested with a touchscreen cancellation task, once when the evenly distributed targets were stationary, and once when the identic targets moved with constant speed on a random path. The integrity of the right optic radiation was analysed by means of a hodologic probabilistic approach. RESULTS: Motion influenced the cancellation behaviour of neglect patients, and the direction of this influence (i.e., an increase or decrease of neglect severity) was modulated by the integrity of the right optic radiation. In patients with an intact optic radiation, the severity of neglect significantly decreased in the dynamic condition. Conversely, in patients with damage to the optic radiation, the severity of neglect significantly increased in the dynamic condition. CONCLUSION: Motion may influence neglect in stroke patients. The integrity of the optic radiation may be a predictor of whether motion increases or decreases the severity of neglect symptoms.

Larger visual stimuli are perceived to last longer from time to time: The internal clock is not affected by nontemporal visual stimulus size

Performance on interval timing is often explained by the assumption of an internal clock based on neural counting. According to this account, a neural pacemaker generates pulses, and the number of pulses relating to a physical time interval is recorded by a counter. Thus, the number of accumulated pulses is the internal representation of this interval. Several studies demonstrated that large visual stimuli are perceived to last longer than smaller ones presented for the same duration. The present study was designed to investigate whether nontemporal visual stimulus size directly affects the internal clock. For this purpose, a temporal reproduction task was applied. Sixty participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions with stimulus size being experimentally varied within either the target or the reproduction interval. A direct effect of nontemporal stimulus size on the pacemaker-counter system should become evident irrespective of whether stimulus size was experimentally varied within the target or the reproduction interval. An effect of nontemporal stimulus size on reproduced duration only occurred when stimulus size was varied during the target interval. This finding clearly argues against the notion that nontemporal visual stimulus size directly affects the internal clock. Furthermore, our findings ruled out a decisional bias as a possible cause of the observed differential effect of stimulus size on reproduced duration. Rather the effect of stimulus size appeared to originate from the memory stage of temporal information processing at which the timing signal from the pacemaker-counter component is encoded in reference memory.

Facilitating Emotional Processing: An Experimental Induction of Psychotherapeutically Relevant Affective States

Psychotherapy research has shown that cognitive-affective meaning making is related to beneficial therapy outcomes. This study explores the underlying micro-processes by inducing specific cognitive-affective states and studying their immediate effects on emotional activation, the resolution of interpersonal grievances, and factors related to therapeutic progress, e.g., mastery experiences, clarification of meaning. Participants suffering from interpersonal grievances were randomly assigned to two conditions. A sentence completion task was employed to induce either the expression of emotional distress or cognitive-affective meaning making. Expressive writing was used to deepen processing. Findings of those participants adhering to the induction procedure (n = 85) showed no differences between conditions at baseline. During writing, participants in both conditions were equally emotionally activated. Directly after the writing task, participants in the meaning making condition (n = 50) reported less unresolved interpersonal grievances, and more mastery experiences, but, e.g., not more clarification, compared to those in the emotional expression condition (n = 35). Results suggest that engagement in specific states that promote meaning making of emotional experience facilitates emotional processing and is related to therapeutic benefit.

Limbic brain responses in mothers with post-traumatic stress disorder and comorbid dissociation to video clips of their children.

Maternal dissociative symptoms which can be comorbid with interpersonal violence-related post-traumatic stress disorder (IPV-PTSD) have been linked to decreased sensitivity and responsiveness to children's emotional communication. This study examined the influence of dissociation on neural activation independently of IPV-PTSD symptom severity when mothers watch video-stimuli of their children during stressful and non-stressful mother-child interactions. Based on previous observations in related fields, we hypothesized that more severe comorbid dissociation in IPV-PTSD would be associated with lower limbic system activation and greater neural activity in regions of the emotion regulation circuit such as the medial prefrontal cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Twenty mothers (of children aged 12-42 months), with and without IPV-PTSD watched epochs showing their child during separation and play while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Multiple regression indicated that when mothers diagnosed with IPV-PTSD watched their children during separation compared to play, dissociative symptom severity was indeed linked to lowered activation within the limbic system, while greater IPV-PTSD symptom severity was associated with heightened limbic activity. Concerning emotion regulation areas, there was activation associated to dissociation in the right dlPFC. Our results are likely a neural correlate of affected mothers' reduced capacity for sensitive responsiveness to their young child following exposure to interpersonal stress, situations that are common in day-to-day parenting.

Facial Feedback Affects Perceived Intensity but Not Quality of Emotional Expressions

Motivated by conflicting evidence in the literature, we re-assessed the role of facial feedback when detecting quantitative or qualitative changes in others’ emotional expressions. Fifty-three healthy adults observed self-paced morph sequences where the emotional facial expression either changed quantitatively (i.e., sad-to-neutral, neutral-to-sad, happy-to-neutral, neutral-to-happy) or qualitatively (i.e. from sad to happy, or from happy to sad). Observers held a pen in their own mouth to induce smiling or frowning during the detection task. When morph sequences started or ended with neutral expressions we replicated a congruency effect: Happiness was perceived longer and sooner while smiling; sadness was perceived longer and sooner while frowning. Interestingly, no such congruency effects occurred for transitions between emotional expressions. These results suggest that facial feedback is especially useful when evaluating the intensity of a facial expression, but less so when we have to recognize which emotion our counterpart is expressing.

Enhanced emotional empathy after psychosocial stress in young healthy men

Empathy is a core prerequisite for human social behavior. Relatively, little is known about how empathy is influenced by social stress and its associated neuroendocrine alterations. The current study was designed to test the impact of acute stress on emotional and cognitive empathy. Healthy male participants were exposed to a psychosocial laboratory stressor (trier social stress test, (TSST)) or a well-matched control condition (Placebo-TSST). Afterwards they participated in an empathy test measuring emotional and cognitive empathy (multifaceted empathy test, (MET)). Stress exposure caused an increase in negative affect, a rise in salivary alpha amylase and a rise in cortisol. Participants exposed to stress reported more emotional empathy in response to pictures displaying both positive and negative emotional social scenes. Cognitive empathy (emotion recognition) in contrast did not differ between the stress and the control group. The current findings provide initial evidence for enhanced emotional empathy after acute psychosocial stress.

Striving for consistency shapes emotional responses to other’s outcomes

Based on the balance theory (Heider, 1958), we hypothesized that emotions (i.e., schadenfreude, resentment, joy and sorrow) induced by other person’s outcomes function as responses restoring balance within cognitive units consisting of the perceiver, other persons and their outcomes. As a consequence, emotional reactions towards others’ outcomes depend on the perceiver’s attitudes in such a way that outcomes of a well-liked person rise congruous responses (sorrow after failure and joy after success), while outcomes of a disliked other lead to incongruous responses (schadenfreude after failure and resentment after success). Our participants recalled a situation from their past in which somebody they liked or disliked had succeed or failed. Additionally, we manipulated whether the outcome referred to a domain where participants’ self-interest was involved or not. We analyzed the participants’ average emotional state as well as specific emotions induced by the recalled events. Consistently with expectations we found that balancing principles played a major role in shaping emotional responses to successes and failures of person who were well-liked or disliked.

Restoring balance within cognitive unit or deservingness evaluation? The role of attitudes and deservingness in shaping emotional reactions to others’ outcomes

Based on Heider’s theory I persumed that personal attitudes are stronger predictors of emotional responses to others’ outcomes than deservingness evaluation. I manipulated outcome, attitude and deservingness experimentally, and measured specific emotions. It appeared deservingness to play a secondary role in eliciting joy and sorrow when interpersonal attitudes were involved.

Prestimulus default mode activity influences depth of processing and recognition in an emotional memory task

Low self-referential thoughts are associated with better concentration, which leads to deeper encoding and increases learning and subsequent retrieval. There is evidence that being engaged in externally rather than internally focused tasks is related to low neural activity in the default mode network (DMN) promoting open mind and the deep elaboration of new information. Thus, reduced DMN activity should lead to enhanced concentration, comprehensive stimulus evaluation including emotional categorization, deeper stimulus processing, and better long-term retention over one whole week. In this fMRI study, we investigated brain activation preceding and during incidental encoding of emotional pictures and on subsequent recognition performance. During fMRI, 24 subjects were exposed to 80 pictures of different emotional valence and subsequently asked to complete an online recognition task one week later. Results indicate that neural activity within the medial temporal lobes during encoding predicts subsequent memory performance. Moreover, a low activity of the default mode network preceding incidental encoding leads to slightly better recognition performance independent of the emotional perception of a picture. The findings indicate that the suppression of internally-oriented thoughts leads to a more comprehensive and thorough evaluation of a stimulus and its emotional valence. Reduced activation of the DMN prior to stimulus onset is associated with deeper encoding and enhanced consolidation and retrieval performance even one week later. Even small prestimulus lapses of attention influence consolidation and subsequent recognition performance. Hum Brain Mapp, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.