NEURAL CORRELATES OF EMOTION & REGULATION IN ADULT VOLUNTEERS

这个子项目是许多研究子项目中利用 资源由NIH/NCRR资助的中心拨款提供。子项目和 调查员(PI)可能从NIH的另一个来源获得了主要资金， 并因此可以在其他清晰的条目中表示。列出的机构是 该中心不一定是调查人员的机构。 功能磁共振成像(FMRI)技术的发展使人类认知研究发生了革命性的变化，它在空间和时间上隔离了与特定过程相关的大脑活动，如情绪处理及其调节。功能磁共振成像的研究已经确定了参与情绪处理的几个大脑区域，包括杏仁核和前扣带皮质(ACC)。ACC和其他额叶区域调节杏仁核的激活，额叶皮质的功能缺陷与异常情绪控制有关。然而，情绪处理和调节的动态并没有以认知处理术语中完全明确的方式来考察。例如，重新评价任务要求被试自愿使用认知重组策略减弱或增强对底片照片的反应强度，这一任务很容易受到指令解释和认知策略的主观差异的影响。此外，这项任务中的控制过程所需的时间必须相对较长。这些限制对解释临床人群和对照组之间激活的显著差异具有特别的影响，并突显了使用fMRI研究情绪及其调节的认知任务的持续发展和改进的需要。 FMRI实验的认知任务的开发涉及一系列漫长而有条理的步骤。在对任务进行设计、编程、测试、校准和重新测试之前，需要对研究中的认知过程进行识别和操作定义。然后，必须在标准样本中验证这项任务，以确保调查中的认知过程实际上是按照设计的方式进行测量的。最后，认知神经科学任务必须在健康志愿者的MRI扫描仪中进行测试，然后才能用于临床人群。因此，任务发展过程是使用fMRI研究人类认知功能的一个主要限制因素。 我们开发了一项名为面孔情绪任务的新任务，以客观和动态地测试情绪加工和调节。这项任务依次显示两张表情相同或不同的人脸，第一张脸是质数，第二张脸是目标脸。面孔的情绪启动要么增强(在一致的情况下)，要么干扰(在不一致的情况下，这有进一步的调节需求)目标的情绪加工。这些影响可以从反应时差和大脑激活模式两个方面来衡量。为了测试识别记忆，上一次会话中将同时使用先前显示的面孔和新面孔。这项任务可以结合功能磁共振成像来研究与以下相关的神经回路：1)面部和情绪加工；2)情绪内容和情绪调节的相互作用；3)情绪加工的自动和控制成分；4)情景面部和情绪记忆的编码和提取。这些都是重要的认知过程，与各种精神障碍有关。EFP任务目前正在大学生样本中进行验证，并将用于一项关于抑郁症患者焦虑障碍的研究。 假设： (1)当目标面孔前面出现相同情绪的主位面孔(一致条件)时，被试的反应速度比不同情绪的主位面孔(不一致状态)或非面孔物体图像(中性条件)时的反应速度更快。(2)恐惧的面孔，无论是表现为质数还是靶子，都会产生杏仁核的强烈激活。(3)情绪冲突(即不和谐与和谐状态)会激活ACC和前额叶(PFC)。(4)额叶内侧区(包括ACC和腹内侧PFC)的激活与杏仁核之间存在相互作用的关系：杏仁核的低激活与ACC和腹内侧PFC的高激活相结合，这两个区域参与执行控制以抑制杏仁核的活动。(5)在任务的面孔识别阶段，新显示的面孔也将产生杏仁核和梭形脸部区域(FFA)的更大激活。(6)在人脸识别阶段对人脸的提取将产生强大的海马区激活。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The development of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques has revolutionized the study of human cognition by spatially and temporally isolating brain activity related to specific processes, such as emotional processing and its regulation. Research with fMRI has already identified several brain regions involved in the processing of emotions, including the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). The ACC and other frontal areas modulate the activation of the amygdala, and functional deficits of the frontal cortex have been related to abnormal emotion control. However the dynamics of emotional processing and regulation have not been examined in a manner that is fully specified in cognitive processing terms. For example, the reappraisal task, which requires subjects to voluntarily attenuate or enhance the intensity of responses to negative photos using cognitive reframing strategies, is highly susceptible to subjective differences in the interpretation of instructions and the cognitive strategies employed. In addition, the time required for the control process in this task has to be relatively long. These limitations have particular impact on the interpretation of significant differences in activation between clinical populations and controls, and highlight the constant need for development and improvement of the cognitive task for research on emotion and its regulation using fMRI. The development of cognitive tasks for fMRI experiments involves a long and regimented series of steps. The cognitive process under study needs to be identified and operationally defined before the task can be designed, programmed, tested, calibrated, and re-tested. The task must then be validated in a normative sample to ensure that the cognitive process under investigation is actually measured as designed. Finally, the cognitive neuroscience task must be tested in the MRI scanner with healthy volunteers before it can be used in clinical populations. As such, the process of task development is a major rate-limiting factor in using fMRI to study cognitive function in humans. We have developed a new task called the Face Emotion Task to objectively and dynamically test emotional processing and regulation. This task displays two faces with the same or different emotion expressions one after the other, with the first face as the prime and the second face as the target. The emotional priming with faces either enhances (in the congruent condition) or interferes with (in the incongruent condition, which has a further regulatory demand) the emotional processing of the target. These effects can be measured in both reaction time differences and brain activation patterns. To test recognition memory, previously displayed and new faces will both be used in the last session. This task can be used in conjunction with fMRI to study the neural circuitry related to: 1) facial and emotional processing; 2) the interaction of emotional content and emotional regulation; 3) automatic versus controlled components of emotional processing; 4) encoding and retrieval of episodic facial and emotional memory. These are all important cognitive processes that have been implicated in a variety of psychiatric disorders. The EFP task is currently being validated in a sample of college students and will be used in a study on anxiety disorder in patients with depression. Hypotheses: (1) Participants will respond more rapidly when target faces are preceded by a prime face with the same emotion (congruent condition) than a prime face with a different emotion (incongruent condition) or a non-face object image (neutral condition). (2) Fearful faces, whether displayed as primes or targets, will produce robust activation of the amygdala. (3) Emotional conflict (i.e., incongruent versus congruent condition) will activate the ACC and prefrontal cortex (PFC). (4) There will be a reciprocal relationship between the activation of the medial frontal region (including ACC and the ventromedial PFC) and the amygdala: lower activation of amygdala will be coupled with greater activation of the ACC and ventromedial PFC, which are involved in executive control to inhibit amygdala activity. (5) Newly displayed faces in the face recognition phase in the task will also produce robust greater activation of the amygdala and fusiform face area (FFA). (6) The retrieval of faces in the face recognition phase will produce robust activation of the hippocampus.