A new study provides new understanding of how the human brain regulates emotions, distinguishing between emotion generation and emotion regulation. By analyzing fMRI studies, researchers have identified specific regions of the brain, including areas of the anterior prefrontal cortex, that are critical for emotional regulation.
These findings could improve mental health treatments by targeting these areas of the brain for therapy or stimulation. The study also explores the interplay between neurotransmitters and emotional regulation, suggesting potential implications for pharmaceutical treatments.
Key facts:
- The study differentiates between brain activity related to the generation of emotions and their regulation, highlighting the role of the anterior prefrontal cortex in regulation.
- It suggests that enhanced activation of specific brain regions during emotional regulation is linked to resilience against negative experiences.
- Research indicates that neurotransmitters such as cannabinoids, opioids, and serotonin play significant roles in emotional regulation, which may influence therapeutic approaches.
Source: Dartmouth College
Have you ever wanted to scream during a particularly bad day but managed not to?
Thank the human brain and the way it regulates emotions, which can be key to navigating everyday life. As we perceive events unfolding around us, the ability to be flexible and reframe a situation has an impact not only on how we feel, but also on our behavior and decision-making.
In fact, some of the problems associated with mental health are related to individuals’ inability to be flexible, such as when persistent negative thoughts make it difficult to perceive a situation differently.
To help address these questions, a new Dartmouth-led study is among the first of its kind to separate activity related to emotion generation from emotion regulation in the human brain.
The findings were published in Nature Neuroscience .
“As a former biomedical engineer, it was exciting to identify some regions of the brain that are purely unique to emotion regulation,” says lead author Ke Bo, a postdoctoral researcher in the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory (CANlab) at Dartmouth.
“Our results provide new insight into how emotional regulation works, identifying targets that could have clinical applications.”
For example, the systems the researchers identified could be good targets for brain stimulation to improve emotion regulation.
Using computational methods, the researchers examined two independent datasets from fMRI studies previously obtained by co-author Peter Gianaros of the University of Pittsburgh.
Participants’ brain activity was recorded in an functional MRI scanner while they viewed images that were likely to provoke a negative reaction, such as a bloody scene or scary-looking animals.
Participants were then asked to recontextualize the stimulus, generating new types of thoughts about an image to make it less aversive, before a neutral image was presented followed by another unpleasant image.
By examining neural activity, researchers were able to identify areas of the brain that are more active when emotions are regulated than when emotions are generated.
The new study reveals that emotional regulation, also known in neuroscience as “reappraisal,” involves specific areas of the anterior prefrontal cortex and other higher-level cortical hierarchies whose role in emotional regulation has not previously been isolated with this level of precision.
These regions are involved in other high-level cognitive functions and are important for abstract thinking and representations of the long-term future.
The more people are able to activate these selective brain regions for emotional regulation, the more resilient they will be to experience something negative without letting it affect them personally.
These findings build on other research linking these areas to better mental health and the ability to resist temptation and avoid drug addiction.
The results also demonstrated that the amygdala, which is known as the threat-related brain region responsible for negative emotions and has long been considered an ancient subcortical threat center, responds to aversive experiences in the same way whether people use their thoughts to self- -esteem. regulate, downregulate negative emotion or not.
“In fact, it is the cortex that is responsible for generating people’s emotional responses, changing the way we see and attribute meaning to events in our environments,” says Bo.
The researchers were also interested in identifying neurochemicals that interact with emotional regulation systems. Neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin shape the way networks of neurons communicate and are targets of both illicit drugs and therapeutic treatments. Some neurotransmitters may be important in enabling the ability to self-regulate or “down-regulate”.
The team compared brain maps of emotion regulation from the two datasets with neurotransmitter binding maps from 36 other studies. The systems involved in regulating negative emotions overlapped with specific neurotransmitter systems.
“Our results showed that receptors for cannabinoids, opioids, and serotonin, including 5H2A, were especially rich in areas involved in emotional regulation,” says senior author Tor Wager, Diana L. Taylor Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience and director of the Dartmouth Imaging Center. Brains at Dartmouth.
“When medications that bind to these receptors are taken, they preferentially affect the emotional regulation system, which raises questions about their potential for long-term effects on our ability to self-regulate.”
Serotonin is well known for its role in depression, as the most commonly used antidepressant medications inhibit its reuptake in synapses, which transmit signals from one neuron to another.
5H2A is the serotonin receptor most strongly affected by another interesting new type of mental health treatment – psychedelic drugs.
The study’s findings suggest that the effects of medications on depression and other mental health disorders may work, in part, by altering the way we think about life events and our ability to self-regulate. This may help explain why drugs, especially psychedelics, are likely to be ineffective without the right kind of psychological support.
The study could help improve therapeutic approaches by increasing our understanding of why and how psychological and pharmaceutical approaches need to be combined in integrated treatments.
“It’s important to consider these types of connections that come from basic science,” says Wager. “Understanding the effects of drugs requires understanding the brain systems involved and what they are doing at a cognitive level.”
Source: Dartmouth College
Original Research: A systems identification approach using Bayes factors to deconstruct the brain bases of emotion regulation ” by Tor Wager et al. Neuroscience of Nature
