Measuring reactive and regulatory processes in middle childhood

情绪调节（ER）的概念被定义为人类影响情绪体验的基本过程，近年来在情绪基础研究中获得了巨大的关注。此外，童年一直被认为是塑造情绪的神经调节过程出现并开始成熟的关键时期。然而，对内质关系的构念效度和测量的研究还没有跟上内质关系作为一种解释情绪相关过程的机制的巨大热情。此外，虽然对成人的研究已经使用神经成像技术来更好地了解内质网的神经基质，但这种方法在儿童内质网研究中的应用进展缓慢。为了促进这一领域的发展，必须回答关于内质网测量、其对相关结构的预测有效性及其神经发育基质的基本问题。因此，本研究包括三个规划阶段。首先，我的实验室将开发和完善一组情感唤起刺激，适用于检查规范的儿童情绪调节，为测量这些基本过程提供工具。使用来自第一个项目阶段的刺激，下一步是检查儿童急诊室对他们对刺激的情绪反应的影响，方法是将他们分配到不同的条件下，在这些条件下，他们被指示增强、抑制或不修改对所呈现的刺激的情绪反应。通过对儿童在不同条件下的反应进行录像和编码，来检查这个年龄组的调节过程在多大程度上成功地调节了对刺激的情绪反应。这些研究将为这项研究的下一步发展奠定基础，在这项研究中，与儿童ER相关的神经基质将使用功能神经成像技术进行检查。使用在前两项研究中验证的刺激，儿童将在暴露于情感唤起刺激时进行扫描，再次在他们增强，体验或抑制情绪反应的条件下。人们认为，两个大脑系统在情绪和内质反应中起着重要作用：第一个系统有时被称为“腹侧”系统，包括杏仁核、腹侧纹状体、腹内侧PFC和脑岛等。第二个系统支持自上而下的控制过程，包括背外侧和后部PFC以及下顶叶区。然而，尽管在脑功能和内质网之间存在重要的发育差异，但过去关于内质网的大部分成像研究都来自于对成人的研究。因此，该研究项目将产生新的、发展敏感的方法来评估儿童ER，这是一个基本的人类过程，以及关于早期发育过程中这一结构的神经基质的重要新见解。*****************

The concept of emotion regulation (ER), defined as fundamental processes by which humans influence emotion experience, has recently gained immense traction in basic research on emotion.  Further, childhood has long been thought to be a crucial period in which neural regulatory processes that shape emotion emerge and begin to mature.  However, research on the construct validity and measurement of ER has not kept pace with the tremendous enthusiasm with which ER is invoked as an explanatory mechanism for emotion-related processes. Further, while research on adults has used neuroimaging techniques to better understand the neural substrates of ER, the application of this methodology in work on children's ER has been slow to emerge.  In order for the field to advance, fundamental questions regarding the measurement of ER, its predictive validity for related constructs, and its neurodevelopmental substrates must be answered.  Thus, this research consists of three programmatic phases.  First, my laboratory will develop and refine a battery of emotionally evocative stimuli suitable for examining normative child emotion regulation, providing a tool for measuring these basic processes. Using stimuli derived from the first program phase, the next step is to examine the influence of children's ER on their emotional responses to stimuli by assigning them to conditions in which they are instructed to enhance, suppress, or not modify emotional responses to the stimuli presented, with children's responses in the different conditions videorecorded and coded to examine the extent to which regulatory processes in this age group are successful in up- or downregulating emotional reactivity to stimuli. These studies will lay the groundwork for the next evolution in this research, in which neural substrates relevant to children's ER will be examined using functional neuroimaging techniques.  Using stimuli validated in the first two studies, children will be scanned while being exposed to emotionally evocative stimuli, again under conditions in which they enhance, experience, or suppress emotional responses.  Two brain systems are thought to play an important role in emotion and ER: the first of these is sometimes referred to as a "ventral" system, and includes the amygdala, ventral striatum, ventromedial PFC, and the insula, among others.  The second system, held to support top-down control processes, includes the dorsolateral and posterior PFC as well as inferior parietal regions.  However, the bulk of past imaging studies of ER comes from work on adults, although important developmental differences are expected in associations between brain function and ER. Thus, this research program will generate new, developmentally sensitive methods for assessing children's ER, a fundamental human process, as well as critical new insights regarding the neural substrates of this construct during early development. *****************