NEURAL SUBSTRATES OF EMOTION REGULATION IN HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS

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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. This GCRC application requests support for MRI scans and psychophysiological testing on 15 healthy volunteers to extend our currently funded R01 study of the neural circuitry of emotion. Our currently funded R01 study examines the circuitry of emotion using functional MRI (fMRI) and psychophysiological measures in healthy controls and individuals with personality disorder (borderline personality disorder and schizotypal personality disorder). The behavioral task in our R01 involves detection and evaluation of three types of stimuli (unpleasant, neutral, pleasant pictures) without a warning cue. However, emotion processing also involves the regulation of the subsequent affective response (Phillips et al 2003). This GCRC pilot study will build on our current passive emotion paradigm by examining active regulation of emotion in 15 healthy individuals. We propose to use a combined fMRI and psychophysiological approach which is a modification of our ongoing R01 study of emotion in that both the fMRI and psychophysiology sessions will now include cued-warning trials for the 3 conditions (neutral, unpleasant, pleasant) and uncued (i.e. no warning) trials. In addition, the cued/uncued paradigm is nearly identical for both sessions. Differences are that a different set of pictures (matched on valence and arousal levels) will be used for the two sessions to minimize habituation effects to the stimuli. Also, facial EMG cannot be recorded in the magnet so it will only be measured during the psychophysiological session. This will help us begin to explore whether neural circuitry changes occur during active regulation of emotion in healthy individuals. We plan to use our R01 data together with the pilot data collected with this GCRC project for publications, as well as, an R01 continuation application. Hypothesis: Based on prior work on cognitive control and emotion processing in general, we predict that on the cued-unpleasant trials, the inhibition of negative emotion will enhance activity within discrete cortical structures (ACC, DLPFC) and attenuate activity in subcortical limbic structures (amygdala). That is, greater activation of ACC and DLPFC will occur during cued-unpleasant trials compared with the uncued-unpleasant trials and there will be no cued-uncued difference for pleasant or neutral conditions.