Measuring reactive and regulatory processes in middle childhood

情绪调节（emotional regulation，ER）的概念被定义为人类影响情绪体验的基本过程，最近在情绪基础研究中获得了巨大的吸引力。 此外，童年一直被认为是一个关键时期，在这个时期，塑造情绪的神经调节过程出现并开始成熟。 然而，ER的结构效度和测量的研究并没有跟上巨大的热情，ER被调用作为一个解释机制的情绪相关的过程。此外，虽然对成人的研究已经使用神经影像学技术，以更好地了解ER的神经基板，这种方法在儿童ER的工作中的应用一直缓慢出现。 为了使该领域的进步，有关ER的测量，其预测相关结构的有效性，其神经发育底物的基本问题必须得到回答。 因此，本研究包括三个方案阶段。 首先，我的实验室将开发和完善一系列情绪唤起刺激，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。使用来自第一个程序阶段的刺激，下一步是检查儿童的ER对他们对刺激的情绪反应的影响，通过将他们分配到指示他们增强，抑制或不修改对刺激的情绪反应的条件，儿童在不同条件下的反应，录像和编码，以检查在多大程度上，在这个年龄组的监管过程，成功地上调或下调对刺激的情绪反应。这些研究将为本研究的下一步发展奠定基础，其中与儿童ER相关的神经基质将使用功能性神经影像技术进行检查。 使用前两项研究中验证的刺激，儿童将在暴露于情绪诱发刺激的同时进行扫描，同样是在他们增强，体验或抑制情绪反应的条件下。 两个大脑系统被认为在情绪和ER中起重要作用：第一个有时被称为“腹侧”系统，包括杏仁核、腹侧纹状体、腹内侧PFC和腹侧纹状体等。 第二个系统，支持自上而下的控制过程，包括背外侧和后PFC以及下顶叶区域。 然而，大部分过去的ER成像研究来自成人的工作，虽然重要的发展差异，预计在脑功能和ER之间的关联。因此，这项研究计划将产生新的，发展敏感的方法来评估儿童的ER，一个基本的人类过程，以及关键的新见解，关于这个结构的神经基板在早期发展。*****************

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. *****************