Emotion regulation and disordered eating behaviour in youths: Two daily‐diary studies

ObjectiveDisordered eating cognitions and behaviours in childhood and adolescence have been identified as precursors for the development of eating disorders. Another important contributor to eating disorder risk is maladaptive emotion regulation. However, while the regulation of negative affect has been the focus of much research, the literature on the role of positive emotion regulation in eating pathology is extremely limited. The present study extends previous research by examining the regulation of both positive and negative affect in disordered eating using two waves of a daily diary design.MethodEvery evening for 21 days, 139 youths (8–15 years) reported their use of rumination, dampening, and disordered eating cognitions and behaviours. 1 year later, during the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic, 115 of these youths were followed‐up.ResultsAs predicted, higher levels of rumination and dampening were found to be associated with a higher frequency of weight concerns and restrictive eating on person‐level (both Waves) and day‐level (Wave 2). Further, a higher frequency of rumination at Wave 1 predicted increases in the frequency of restrictive eating 1 year later.ConclusionsOur findings underline the importance of examining regulation of both positive and negative emotion in order to understand eating disorder risk

Brief Mindfulness Meditation Improves Attention in Novices: Evidence From ERPs and Moderation by Neuroticism

Past research has found that mindfulness meditation training improves executive attention. Event-related potentials (ERPs) have indicated that this effect could be driven by more efficient allocation of resources on demanding attentional tasks, such as the Flanker Task and the Attention Network Test (ANT). However, it is not clear whether these changes depend on long-term practice. In two studies, we sought to investigate the effects of a brief, 10-min meditation session on attention in novice meditators, compared to a control activity. We also tested moderation by individual differences in neuroticism and the possible underlying neural mechanisms driving these effects, using ERPs. In Study 1, participants randomly assigned to listen to a 10-min meditation tape had better accuracy on incongruent trials on a Flanker task, with no detriment in reaction times (RTs), indicating better allocation of resources. In Study 2, those assigned to listen to a meditation tape performed an ANT more quickly than control participants, with no detriment in performance. Neuroticism moderated both of these effects, and ERPs showed that those individuals lower in neuroticism who meditated for 10 min exhibited a larger N2 to incongruent trials compared to those who listened to a control tape; whereas those individuals higher in neuroticism did not. Together, our results support the hypothesis that even brief meditation improves allocation of attentional resources in some novices

Maternal Neural Responses to Infant Cries and Faces: Relationships with Substance Use

Substance abuse in pregnant and recently post-partum women is a major public health concern because of effects on the infant and on the ability of the adult to care for the infant. In addition to the negative health effects of teratogenic substances on fetal development, substance use can contribute to difficulties associated with the social and behavioral aspects of parenting. Neural circuits associated with parenting behavior overlap with circuits involved in addiction (e.g., frontal, striatal, and limbic systems) and thus may be co-opted for the craving/reward cycle associated with substance use and abuse and be less available for parenting. The current study investigates the degree to which neural circuits associated with parenting are disrupted in mothers who are substance-using. Specifically, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural response to emotional infant cues (faces and cries) in substance-using compared to non-using mothers. In response to both faces (of varying emotional valence) and cries (of varying distress levels), substance-using mothers evidenced reduced neural activation in regions that have been previously implicated in reward and motivation as well as regions involved in cognitive control. Specifically, in response to faces, substance users showed reduced activation in prefrontal regions, including the dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortices, as well as visual processing (occipital lobes) and limbic regions (parahippocampus and amygdala). Similarly, in response to infant cries, substance-using mothers showed reduced activation relative to non-using mothers in prefrontal regions, auditory sensory processing regions, insula and limbic regions (parahippocampus and amygdala). These findings suggest that infant stimuli may be less salient for substance-using mothers, and such reduced saliency may impair developing infant-caregiver attachment and the ability of mothers to respond appropriately to their infants

Regional Brain Responses in Nulliparous Women to Emotional Infant Stimuli

Infant cries and facial expressions influence social interactions and elicit caretaking behaviors from adults. Recent neuroimaging studies suggest that neural responses to infant stimuli involve brain regions that process rewards. However, these studies have yet to investigate individual differences in tendencies to engage or withdraw from motivationally relevant stimuli. To investigate this, we used event-related fMRI to scan 17 nulliparous women. Participants were presented with novel infant cries of two distress levels (low and high) and unknown infant faces of varying affect (happy, sad, and neutral) in a randomized, counter-balanced order. Brain activation was subsequently correlated with scores on the Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System scale. Infant cries activated bilateral superior and middle temporal gyri (STG and MTG) and precentral and postcentral gyri. Activation was greater in bilateral temporal cortices for low- relative to high-distress cries. Happy relative to neutral faces activated the ventral striatum, caudate, ventromedial prefrontal, and orbitofrontal cortices. Sad versus neutral faces activated the precuneus, cuneus, and posterior cingulate cortex, and behavioral activation drive correlated with occipital cortical activations in this contrast. Behavioral inhibition correlated with activation in the right STG for high- and low-distress cries relative to pink noise. Behavioral drive correlated inversely with putamen, caudate, and thalamic activations for the comparison of high-distress cries to pink noise. Reward-responsiveness correlated with activation in the left precentral gyrus during the perception of low-distress cries relative to pink noise. Our findings indicate that infant cry stimuli elicit activations in areas implicated in auditory processing and social cognition. Happy infant faces may be encoded as rewarding, whereas sad faces activate regions associated with empathic processing. Differences in motivational tendencies may modulate neural responses to infant cues

Parameter Space and Potential for Biomarker Development in 25 Years of fMRI Drug Cue Reactivity: A Systematic Review.

IMPORTANCE: In the last 25 years, functional magnetic resonance imaging drug cue reactivity (FDCR) studies have characterized some core aspects in the neurobiology of drug addiction. However, no FDCR-derived biomarkers have been approved for treatment development or clinical adoption. Traversing this translational gap requires a systematic assessment of the FDCR literature evidence, its heterogeneity, and an evaluation of possible clinical uses of FDCR-derived biomarkers. OBJECTIVE: To summarize the state of the field of FDCR, assess their potential for biomarker development, and outline a clear process for biomarker qualification to guide future research and validation efforts. EVIDENCE REVIEW: The PubMed and Medline databases were searched for every original FDCR investigation published from database inception until December 2022. Collected data covered study design, participant characteristics, FDCR task design, and whether each study provided evidence that might potentially help develop susceptibility, diagnostic, response, prognostic, predictive, or severity biomarkers for 1 or more addictive disorders. FINDINGS: There were 415 FDCR studies published between 1998 and 2022. Most focused on nicotine (122 [29.6%]), alcohol (120 [29.2%]), or cocaine (46 [11.1%]), and most used visual cues (354 [85.3%]). Together, these studies recruited 19 311 participants, including 13 812 individuals with past or current substance use disorders. Most studies could potentially support biomarker development, including diagnostic (143 [32.7%]), treatment response (141 [32.3%]), severity (84 [19.2%]), prognostic (30 [6.9%]), predictive (25 [5.7%]), monitoring (12 [2.7%]), and susceptibility (2 [0.5%]) biomarkers. A total of 155 interventional studies used FDCR, mostly to investigate pharmacological (67 [43.2%]) or cognitive/behavioral (51 [32.9%]) interventions; 141 studies used FDCR as a response measure, of which 125 (88.7%) reported significant interventional FDCR alterations; and 25 studies used FDCR as an intervention outcome predictor, with 24 (96%) finding significant associations between FDCR markers and treatment outcomes. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Based on this systematic review and the proposed biomarker development framework, there is a pathway for the development and regulatory qualification of FDCR-based biomarkers of addiction and recovery. Further validation could support the use of FDCR-derived measures, potentially accelerating treatment development and improving diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive clinical judgments

Perceptual Load-Dependent Neural Correlates of Distractor Interference Inhibition

The load theory of selective attention hypothesizes that distractor interference is suppressed after perceptual processing (i.e., in the later stage of central processing) at low perceptual load of the central task, but in the early stage of perceptual processing at high perceptual load. Consistently, studies on the neural correlates of attention have found a smaller distractor-related activation in the sensory cortex at high relative to low perceptual load. However, it is not clear whether the distractor-related activation in brain regions linked to later stages of central processing (e.g., in the frontostriatal circuits) is also smaller at high rather than low perceptual load, as might be predicted based on the load theory.We studied 24 healthy participants using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a visual target identification task with two perceptual loads (low vs. high). Participants showed distractor-related increases in activation in the midbrain, striatum, occipital and medial and lateral prefrontal cortices at low load, but distractor-related decreases in activation in the midbrain ventral tegmental area and substantia nigra (VTA/SN), striatum, thalamus, and extensive sensory cortices at high load.Multiple levels of central processing involving midbrain and frontostriatal circuits participate in suppressing distractor interference at either low or high perceptual load. For suppressing distractor interference, the processing of sensory inputs in both early and late stages of central processing are enhanced at low load but inhibited at high load

Affective lability and difficulties with regulation are differentially associated with amygdala and prefrontal response in women with Borderline Personality Disorder

The present neuroimaging study investigated two aspects of difficulties with emotion associated with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD()): 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 (ALS()), 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 (DERS()), was negatively correlated with left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG()) 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