Orbitofrontal cortex mediation of emotion regulation

描述（由申请人提供）：本提案的目的是支持候选人进行功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）研究所需的技能发展，以调查眶额叶皮层在社会和情感功能中的作用。训练内容包括指导健康参与者优化眶额皮质（OFC）血氧水平依赖（BOLD）信号的技能发展，限定脑病变的神经放射学评估，以及将OFC损伤的神经心理学患者引入功能磁共振成像环境。OFC的损伤会导致情绪失调和社交不当行为。获得的技能将允许研究有或没有OFC神经输入的情绪处理的神经机制。本研究拟探讨三个主要情绪过程的行为和神经机制：1)无关情绪材料的抑制；2)情绪效价（积极效价和消极效价）对情绪材料抑制的影响；3)情绪状态对注意和判断的影响。通过行为学和功能磁共振成像（fMRI）相结合的方法，这些研究将揭示参与情绪调节的神经机制，包括健康个体眶额叶皮层和皮层下脑区的神经动力学调解以及眶额叶损伤后这些动力学的重组。这项研究对于理解各种神经和心理障碍的情感症状至关重要。由于传统神经影像学的方法限制和建立患者队列的困难，眶额叶皮层对情绪处理的调解研究不足，理解不足。加州大学伯克利分校提供了完美的培训环境，因为它有一个多学科的研究小组，研究先进的功能磁共振成像技术，以及一个已建立的OFC损伤患者队列。拟议的研究和培训计划将为候选人提供高度专业化的培训，并促进社会和情感功能的神经生物学模型的发展，该模型可以应用于神经和心理疾病的特定假设。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this proposal is to support the candidate's development of skills necessary to perform functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research to investigate the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in social and emotional functioning. The training component includes the mentored development of skills in optimizing blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in healthy participants, neuroradiology assessment of circumscribed brain lesions, and the introduction of neuropsychological patients with OFC damage into the fMRI environment. Damage to the OFC causes emotion dysregulation and socially inappropriate behavior. The acquired skills will allow for the investigation of neural mechanisms of emotion processing with and without the neural input of the OFC. The research plan proposes to investigate behavioral and neural mechanisms of three primary emotion processes: 1) inhibition of irrelevant emotional material; 2) the effect of emotional valence (positive vs. negative) on inhibition of emotional material; 3) the influence of mood-state on attention and judgment. Through complementary behavioral and fMRI methods, these studies will demonstrate the neural mechanisms involved in emotion regulation, including the neural dynamics of orbitofrontal cortex mediation of cortical and sub-cortical brain regions in healthy individuals and the reorganization of these dynamics after orbitofrontal damage. This research is crucial to the understanding of affective symptoms across a variety of neurological and psychological disorders. Orbitofrontal cortex mediation of emotion processing is under-researched and poorly understood because methodological constraints of traditional neuroimaging and difficulties establishing a patient cohort. The University of California at Berkeley provides the perfect training environment as it has a multidisciplinary group of researchers working on advanced fMRI techniques, as well as an established cohort of patients with OFC damage. The proposed research and training plan will provide highly specialized training for the candidate and facilitate the development of a neurobiological model of social and emotional functioning that can be applied with specific hypotheses across a spectrum of neurological and psychological disorders.