This study used functional MRI (fMRI) to examine a novel aspect of emotion regulation in adolescent development: whether age predicts differences in both the concurrent and lasting effects of emotion regulation on amygdala response. In the first active regulation phase of the testing session, fMRI data was collected while 56 healthy individuals (age range: 10.50–22.92 years) reappraised aversive stimuli so as to diminish negative responses to them. After a short delay, the second re-presentation phase involved passively viewing the aversive images from the reappraisal task. During active regulation, older individuals showed greater drops in negative affect and inverse rostrolateral prefrontal-amygdala connectivity. During re-presentation, older individuals continued to show lasting reductions in the amygdala response to aversive stimuli they had previously reappraised, an effect mediated by rostrolateral PFC. These data suggest that one source of heightened emotionality in adolescence is a diminished ability to cognitively down-regulate aversive reactions.

No abstract

The demands of social life often require categorically judging whether someone's continuously varying facial movements express “calm” or “fear”, or whether our fluctuating internal states mean we feel “good” or “bad”. In two neuroimaging studies, we ask whether this kind of categorical, ‘black and white’, thinking can shape the perception and neural representation of emotion. Using psychometric and neuroimaging methods, we found that (1) across participants, judging emotions using a ‘black and white’ scale vs. a ‘shades of gray’ scale shifted subjective emotion perception thresholds, (2) these shifts corresponded with activity in regions associated with affective responding including the amygdala and ventral anterior insula, and (3) connectivity of these regions with the medial prefrontal cortex correlated with the magnitude of categorization-related shifts. These findings suggest that categorical thinking about emotion may actively shape the perception and neural representation of the emotions in question.

With depictions of others facing threats common in the media, the experience of vicarious anxiety may be prevalent in the general population. However, the phenomenon of vicarious anxiety-the experience of anxiety in response to observing others expressing anxiety-and the interpersonal mechanisms underlying it have not been fully investigated in prior research. In 4 studies, we investigate the role of empathy in experiencing vicarious anxiety, using film clips depicting target victims facing threats. In Studies 1 and 2, trait emotional empathy was associated with greater self-reported anxiety when observing target victims, and with perceiving greater anxiety to be experienced by the targets. Study 3 extended these findings by demonstrating that trait empathic concern-the tendency to feel concern and compassion for others-was associated with experiencing vicarious anxiety, whereas trait personal distress-the tendency to experience distress in stressful situations-was not. Study 4 manipulated state empathy to establish a causal relationship between empathy and experience of vicarious anxiety. Participants who took an empathic perspective when observing target victims, as compared to those who took an objective perspective using reappraisal-based strategies, reported experiencing greater anxiety, risk-aversion, and sleep disruption the following night. These results highlight the impact of one's social environment on experiencing anxiety, particularly for those who are highly empathic. In addition, these findings have implications for extending basic models of anxiety to incorporate interpersonal processes, understanding the role of empathy in social learning, and potential applications for therapeutic contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record

The present neuroimaging study investigated two aspects of difficulties with emotion associated with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD1): affective lability and difficulty regulating emotion. While these two characteristics have been previously linked to BPD symptomology, it remains unknown whether individual differences in affective lability and emotion regulation difficulties are subserved by distinct neural substrates within a BPD sample. To address this issue, sixty women diagnosed with BPD were scanned while completing a task that assessed baseline emotional reactivity as well as top-down emotion regulation. More affective instability, as measured by the Affective Lability Scale (ALS2), positively correlated with greater amygdala responses on trials assessing emotional reactivity. Greater difficulties with regulating emotion, as measured by the Difficulties with Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS3), was negatively correlated with left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG4) recruitment on trials assessing regulatory ability. These findings suggest that, within a sample of individuals with BPD, greater bottom-up amygdala activity is associated with heightened affective lability. By contrast, difficulties with emotion regulation are related to reduced IFG recruitment during emotion regulation. These results point to distinct neural mechanisms for different aspects of BPD symptomology.