Neurocognitive bases of emotion regulation development in adolescence

Emotion regulation is the ability to recruit processes to influence emotion generation. In recent years there has been mounting interest in how emotions are regulated at behavioural and neural levels, as well as in the relevance of emotional dysregulation to psychopathology. During adolescence, brain regions involved in affect generation and regulation, including the limbic system and prefrontal cortex, undergo protracted structural and functional development. Adolescence is also a time of increasing vulnerability to internalising and externalising psychopathologies associated with poor emotion regulation, including depression, anxiety and antisocial behaviour. It is therefore of particular interest to understand how emotion regulation develops over this time, and how this relates to ongoing brain development. However, to date relatively little research has addressed these questions directly. This review will discuss existing research in these areas in both typical adolescence and in adolescent psychopathology, and will highlight opportunities for future research. In particular, it is important to consider the social context in which adolescent emotion regulation develops. It is possible that while adolescence may be a time of vulnerability to emotional dysregulation, scaffolding the development of emotion regulation during this time may be a fruitful preventative target for psychopathology

Personality Is Reflected in the Brain's Intrinsic Functional Architecture

Personality describes persistent human behavioral responses to broad classes of environmental stimuli. Investigating how personality traits are reflected in the brain's functional architecture is challenging, in part due to the difficulty of designing appropriate task probes. Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) can detect intrinsic activation patterns without relying on any specific task. Here we use RSFC to investigate the neural correlates of the five-factor personality domains. Based on seed regions placed within two cognitive and affective ‘hubs’ in the brain—the anterior cingulate and precuneus—each domain of personality predicted RSFC with a unique pattern of brain regions. These patterns corresponded with functional subdivisions responsible for cognitive and affective processing such as motivation, empathy and future-oriented thinking. Neuroticism and Extraversion, the two most widely studied of the five constructs, predicted connectivity between seed regions and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and lateral paralimbic regions, respectively. These areas are associated with emotional regulation, self-evaluation and reward, consistent with the trait qualities. Personality traits were mostly associated with functional connections that were inconsistently present across participants. This suggests that although a fundamental, core functional architecture is preserved across individuals, variable connections outside of that core encompass the inter-individual differences in personality that motivate diverse responses

Functional cerebral asymmetries of emotional processes in the healthy and bipolar brain

The perception and processing of emotions are of primary importance for social interaction, which confers faculties such as inferring what another person’s feels. Brain organisation of emotion perception has shown to primarily involve right hemisphere functioning. However, the brain may be functionally organised according to fundamental aspects of emotion such as valence, rather than involving processing of emotions in general. It should be noted, however, that emotion perception is not merely a perceptual process consisting in the input of emotional information, but also involves one’s emotional response. Therefore, the functional brain organisation of emotional processing may also be influenced by emotional experience. An experimental model for testing functional cerebral asymmetries (FCAs) of valenced emotional experience is uniquely found in bipolar disorder (BD) involving impaired ability to regulate emotions and eventually leading to depressive or manic episodes. Previous models have only explained hemispheric asymmetries for manic and depressive mood episodes, but not for BD euthymia. The present thesis sought to investigate FCAs in emotional processing in two major ways. First, FCAs underlying facial emotion perception under normal functioning was examined in healthy controls. Secondly, functional brain organisation in emotional processing was further investigated by assessing FCAs in the bipolarity continuum, used as an experimental model for studying the processing of emotions. In contrast with previous asymmetry models, results suggested a right hemisphere involvement in emotional experience regardless of valence. Atypical FCAs were found in euthymic BD patients reflecting inherent aspects of BD functional brain organisation that are free of symptomatic influence. Also, BD patients exhibited atypical connectivity in a default amygdala network particularly affecting the right hemisphere, suggesting intrinsic mechanisms associated with internal emotional states. Last, BD patients were associated with a reduced right hemisphere specialisation in visuospatial attention, therefore suggesting that right hemisphere dysfunction can also affect non-emotional processes. Taken together, the findings emphasize a BD continuum model relying on euthymia as a bridging state between usual mood and acute mood phases

Conduct Problems, Callous-Unemotional Traits and Emotion Processing: Adversity and Diversity, a Functional Neuroimaging Study

This thesis focused on youths who present with conduct problems (CP), callous-unemotional traits and functional neuroimaging. PART 1: A narrative review of current neuroimaging literature regarding youths with CP. Firstly, this review outlined general CP related considerations regarding neuroimaging literature and common CP risk factors before summarising structural neuroimaging literature. Functional neuroimaging research was then summarised using neurocognitive domains of functioning: acute threat response, social cognition, cognitive control and reinforcement learning. Findings were discussed with reference to how risk factors and neurocognitive functioning interact to produce behavioural syndromes associated with CP. Future CP related neuroimaging research should focus on domains of functioning and the influence of risk factors on heterogeneity. PART 2: A functional MRI study that used facial expressions (angry/sad/happy) to investigate neural differences in emotion processing amongst boys with CP split between high and low callous-unemotional (CU) traits, compared to matched controls. Findings highlighted perturbations in limbic, frontal, temporal and medial regions for both high and low CU trait boys compared to controls. CP boys demonstrated specific atypical activation in the amygdala, insula and prefrontal cortex when processing negative facial expressions and were associated with more severe pathological parenting practices than controls. Potential explanations and clinical implications were explored. PART 3: A critical appraisal of my learning regarding neuroimaging and youths with CP including my perspective from clinical practice. This appraisal focused on the theoretical, diagnostic, research, clinical and narrative implications of transitioning understandings of neural function from a behavioural, damaged and functionally specialised paradigm toward a dimensional, adapted and interrelated paradigm

Deviations in neural activity and network integration underpinning the co-occurrence of emotion dysregulation and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Analyses of fMRI task activations and functional brain network topology

The aim of this thesis was to improve our understanding of the relationship between Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and emotion dysregulation and the underlying neural activity. Three research articles examine specific aspects of the relationship between ADHD and emotion dysregulation, namely the perception of emotional stimuli, the association between functional brain topology and emotion dysregulation in different ADHD presentations, and emotion dysregulation-related neurobiological and phenotypical predictors of the course of ADHD. All three articles are based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Individuals with ADHD exhibited aberrant amygdala reactivity and ventromedial prefrontal cortex coupling in the perception and processing of emotional face stimuli. Moreover, functional network topology of the right insula was shown to affect emotion dysregulation in ADHD and emotion dysregulation and integration of emotion-related brain networks were shown to affect intraindividual change in ADHD severity throughout late adolescence. In Summary, the thesis provides evidence that neural activity and functional connectivity between brain structures affecting emotion may be related to the co-occurrence of emotion dysregulation and ADHD. ADHD and the common co-occurring emotional problems should not be attributed to single, isolated systems, e.g., for executive functions and cognitive control. The neurobiological roots appear to be complex and heterogeneous, involving the interplay of different brain networks that are at least partly emotion-related

The neural architecture of emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a nebulous concept that permeates daily interpersonal communication. Despite prolific research into its benefits, EI subjective measurement is difficult, contributing to an enigmatic definition of its core constructs. However, neuroimaging research probing socioaffective brain mechanisms underlying putative EI constructs can add an objective perspective to existing models, thereby illuminating the nature of EI. Therefore, the primary aim of this dissertation is to identify brain networks underlying EI and examine how EI arises from the brain’s functional and structural neuroarchitecture. EI is first defined according to behavioral data, which suggests EI is made up of two core constructs: Empathy and Emotion Regulation (ER). The interaction of brain networks underlying Empathy and ER is then investigated using a novel neuroimaging analysis method: dynamic functional connectivity (dynFC). The results suggest efficient communication and (re)configuration between the CEN, DMN, SN underlie both ER and RME task dynamics, and that these temporal patterns relate to trait empathy and ER tendency. Given the demonstrated behavioral and neurobiological relationship between empathy and ER, our second aim is to examine each of these constructs individually through detailed experiments using a variety of neuroimaging methodologies. The dissertation concludes by proposing EI is an ability that arises from the effective, yet flexible communication between brain networks underlying Empathy and ER. The dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter I describes the foundational concept of EI as originally described by a variety of psychological figures and the lacuna that exists in terms of its neural correlates. Chapter II presents behavioral data that proposes EI is best predicted by Empathy and ER. Chapter III explores the dynamic relationship between brain networks underlying Empathy and ER, with the aim of elucidating their neurobiological associations, and investigate how such associations may combine to create EI. Chapter IV examines Empathy closely, by probing its neurobiological relationship to interoception and anxiety. Chapter V examines ER closely, by investigating whether gender plays a role in ER, and its neurobiological relationship to hormones. Chapter VI links the general findings from Chapters III, IV and V, and proposes an integrative neurocognitive EI model. The dissertation concludes by providing clinical and non-clinical applications for the model

Psychopathy to Altruism: Neurobiology of the Selfish–Selfless Spectrum

The age-old philosophical, biological, and social debate over the basic nature of humans as being “universally selfish” or “universally good” continues today highlighting sharply divergent views of natural social order. Here we analyze advances in biology, genetics and neuroscience increasing our understanding of the evolution, features and neurocircuitry of the human brain underlying behavior in the selfish–selfless spectrum. First, we examine evolutionary pressures for selection of altruistic traits in species with protracted periods of dependence on parents and communities for subsistence and acquisition of learned behaviors. Evidence supporting the concept that altruistic potential is a common feature in human populations is developed. To go into greater depth in assessing critical features of the social brain, the two extremes of selfish–selfless behavior, callous unemotional psychopaths and zealous altruists who take extreme measures to help others, are compared on behavioral traits, structural/functional neural features, and the relative contributions of genetic inheritance versus acquired cognitive learning to their mindsets. Evidence from population groups ranging from newborns, adopted children, incarcerated juveniles, twins and mindfulness meditators point to the important role of neuroplasticity and the dopaminergic reward systems in forming and reforming neural circuitry in response to personal experience and cultural influences in determining behavior in the selfish–selfless spectrum. The underlying neural circuitry differs between psychopaths and altruists with emotional processing being profoundly muted in psychopaths and significantly enhanced in altruists. But both groups are characterized by the reward system of the brain shaping behavior. Instead of rigid assignment of human nature as being “universally selfish” or “universally good,” both characterizations are partial truths based on the segments of the selfish–selfless spectrum being examined. In addition, individuals and populations can shift in the behavioral spectrum in response to cognitive therapy and social and cultural experience, and approaches such as mindfulness training for introspection and reward-activating compassion are entering the mainstream of clinical care for managing pain, depression, and stress

Neurocognitive Mechanisms Associated with Real-world Financial Savings among Individuals from Lower Income Households

Lower financial savings among individuals experiencing adverse social determinants of health (SDoH) such as low socioeconomic status (low-SES) increases health inequities during times of crisis. Despite evidence suggesting that economic stability established by better money-saving behavior may minimize socioeconomic disparities, neurocognitive mechanisms that regulate money-saving behavior remains to be understood. In the current studies, we utilized neuroimaging, behavioral, self-report, and real-world behavior data to examine neurocognitive mechanisms associated with money-saving behavior among low-SES population. In study 1, we utilized Balloon Analogue Risk task (BART) to probe decision-making (DM) related brain activity and further examined the relationship between brain activity, BART-performance, and real-world money-saving behavior. In study 2, we utilized n-back task to probe working memory (WM) mechanism and characterized the relationship between WM-related brain activity, WM-performance, and money-saving behavior. In study 3, we utilized resting-state fMRI data to characterize the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the brain regions associated with WM and their relationship with money-saving behavior. Regarding DM related brain-behavior relationship, elevated risk-related amygdala activity was associated with improved strategic-DM (i.e., BART task-performance measure) and improved strategic-DM, in turn, predicted better savings. Additionally, in an exploratory analysis, personality trait (i.e., alexithymia) moderated this mediation such that for individuals with low alexithymia (versus higher alexithymia), elevated risk-related amygdala activity was associated with better savings. Regarding WM related brain activity and associated behavior, laboratory WM performance (dprime) mediated the association between WM related DMN deactivation and real-world savings behavior such that increased DMN deactivation improves dprime which, in turn, results in better savings. Further, considering the rsFC of brain regions related to WM and associated behavior, dprime mediated the effect of fronto-limbic and fronto-frontal connectivity on real-world saving behavior such that higher frontal-limbic connectivity predicted worsened WM performance, which in turn, predicted reduced savings. Similarly, higher fronto-frontal connectivity predicted better WM performance, and, in turn, better WM performance predicted improved savings. This present study provides evidence that interventions targeting brain activity related to higher order executive function (DM and WM) and associated cognitive performance can augment success in terms of real-world money-saving behavior

Children at high-familial risk for Eating Disorders: study of psychopathology, neuropsychology and neuroimaging

Evidence suggest that a diagnosis of an eating disorder (ED) is associated with differential neurocognitive functioning and neural mechanisms. However, whether differences are present prior to the onset of the disorder (‘trait’), possibly affecting risk status for development of an ED; or whether differences are a consequence of secondary features of the disorder such as low nutritional intake (‘state’), is not clear. Family studies have established that first-degree relatives of individuals with ED are at higher risk of developing an ED than the general population, therefore, children of mothers with an ED (current or history) are the perfect group to study risk pathways to developing ED. This is the first study to explore neural alterations as well as neurocognitive functioning in girls at high-familial risk of developing an ED, in comparison to children who are not. High risk status of girls were defined using a maternal clinical interview to confirm lifetime ED diagnosis. Intelligence, social cognition, reward responsiveness, neuropsychological function and brain imaging were investigated in girls at high-familial risk. Girls at high familial risk demonstrated difficulties in set-shifting (cognitive flexibility) and increased reward responsiveness when compared to girls at low risk. Girls at risk also had overall increased Gray matter (GM) volume, and specifically increased GM in amygdala, caudate, hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex when compared to girls at low risk. There were no differences in white matter (WM) connectivity from amygdala to areas of the cortex in girls at risk compared to girls at low risk. Results suggest that differences observed may constitute putative intermediate phenotypes for ED, although this requires further study with larger samples. Findings are important as they support hypothesis of altered set-shifting as an endophenotype for ED. They also provide evidence of alterations in ventral (limbic) neurcircuit that includes the amygdala and caudate, both of which are of importance for identifying emotional stimuli and generation of affective response to these as well as playing a role in reward processes and behaviour regulation