Neurocognitive Mechanism of Human Resilience: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Review

Abstract

Resilience is an innate human capacity that holds the key to uncovering why some people rebound after trauma and others never recover. Various theories have debated the mechanisms underlying resilience at the psychological level but have not yet incorporated neurocognitive concepts/findings. In this paper, we put forward the idea that cognitive flexibility moderates how well people adapt to adverse experiences, by shifting attention resources between cognition–emotion regulation and pain perception. We begin with a consensus on definitions and highlight the role of cognitive appraisals in mediating this process. Shared concepts among appraisal theories suggest that cognition–emotion, as well as pain perception, are cognitive mechanisms that underlie how people respond to adversity. Frontal brain circuitry sub-serves control of cognition and emotion, connecting the experience of physical pain. This suggests a substantial overlap between these phenomena. Empirical studies from brain imaging support this notion. We end with a discussion of how the role of the frontal brain network in regulating human resilience, including how the frontal brain network interacts with cognition–emotion–pain perception, can account for cognitive theories and why cognitive flexibilities’ role in these processes can create practical applications, analogous to the resilience process, for the recovery of neural plasticity.

Insomnia in the Italian Population During Covid-19 Outbreak: A Snapshot on One Major Risk Factor for Depression and Anxiety

“…-Individual differences in personality traits are associated to variability in resilience ability and adaptation to adverse events. Emotion regulation and cognitive flexibility seem to be relevant factors in stress response and adjustment [e.g., (17,18)]. Gross (19) defines emotion regulation as the process by which people influence emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express them.…”

Developing Employee Resilience: The Role of Leader-Facilitated Emotion Management

“…Adversity is a fact of life, and life in organizations is no exception. As employees face increasingly complex work stressors and rapid organizational change, the process of overcoming adversity, or resilience, has sparked the interest of organizational scholars across disciplines (Britt et al, 2016; Fisher et al, 2019; Hartmann et al, 2019; King, 2010; Koerber et al, 2018, Kuntz et al, 2017; Luthans et al, 2010; Rice & Liu, 2016; Vanhove et al, 2016; Yao & Hsieh, 2019). Overcoming adversity is a process that involves learning and adapting (Kuntz et al, 2017), placing resilience-building directly within the purview of Human Resource Development (HRD).…”

Multimodal Imaging Analysis Reveals Frontal-Associated Networks in Relation to Individual Resilience Strength

“…Psychological resilience is an important characteristic that can predict one's success in every aspect of life and is considered to correlate with one's mental wellbeing [1]. Some researchers have proposed that this characteristic involves numerous factors such as genetic, epigenetic, brain structure, brain function, neurochemical, physiological, developmental, demographic, cultural, economic, social, and psychological variables [2][3][4][5][6][7]. While all these variables play some roles in predicting the strength of psychological resilience, this study specifically focused on the aspects of brain structure and function in relation to the personal strength of resilience.…”

“…They employed a unimodal neuroimaging approach [i.e., resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rfMRI)] to investigate the role of the PFC brain network in modulation between resilience and overall quality of life. Human brain neuroimaging techniques are widely used in neuroscience to improve our understanding of the brain's structure and function and to identify biomarkers, especially for psychiatric diseases [7,11]. Likewise, this advanced imaging approach is suitable for revealing the mediation role of the brain's structure and function in relation to psychological resilience [12].…”

“…Kong et al's [3,8] results demonstrated that the frontal cortex plays an important role in subjective wellbeing in healthy young adults. In line with this hypothesis of PFC involvement, we recently proposed a conceptual neurocognitive model, i.e., cognitive appraisal of resilience (CAR) model, based on the literature that elucidates potential brain mechanisms underlying human resilience [7]. The CAR model suggests that a disrupted frontal network of the brain impairs cognitive flexibility, leading to maladaptive behavioral outcomes.…”