Emotion regulation and its neural correlates in the process of transition to psychosis

转变为首次精神病发作或复发的潜在过程尚不清楚。虽然在精神病发作之前会有高度的情绪状态，但我们不知道为什么个体不能有效地调节这些情绪。该项目旨在确定情绪调节（ER）的困难，这些困难构成了处于首次精神病发作或复发风险的人的压力源、负面情绪和精神病症状之间的未知联系。主要目的是探讨情绪调节困难是否与精神病症状的增加有关，确定症状预防性调节策略，揭示皮质边缘结构在内质网中的作用，并确定解释情绪调节困难的易感性因素。将比较具有精神分裂症前驱症状、精神病症状、缓解症状、焦虑症和健康对照者调节焦虑、悲伤和愤怒的能力。该项目将包括进行诱发消极情绪的实验，并测试不同的急诊室策略对情绪、心理生理反应和症状的影响。此外，我们还将采用功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）来测试下行痛苦情绪的困难是否与皮质边缘结构（包括PFC和杏仁核）的强激活有关。了解个体在精神病发作前期是否在调节情绪方面存在困难，理解这些困难发生的原因，以及测试特定策略是否有助于预防症状增加，对于了解治疗干预中应该针对哪些技能至关重要。因此，本项目的结果将为ER的预防研究和实时fMRI研究领域的后续研究提供实质性的基础。

The processes underlying transition into a first psychotic episode or relapse are not sufficiently well understood. Although a state of heightened emotionality precedes psychotic episodes we do not know why individuals fail to regulate these emotions effectively. The project aims to identify difficulties in emotion regulation (ER) that constitute the unknown links between stressors, negative emotions and psychotic symptoms in persons at risk of developing a first psychotic episode or relapse. The main aims are to explore whether difficulties in regulating emotion are associated with an increase in psychotic symptoms, to identify symptom-preventive regulation strategies, to reveal the role of corticolimbic structures in ER and to identify vulnerability factors that explain the difficulties in emotion regulation.Persons with prodromal symptoms of schizophrenia, psychotic symptoms, remitted symptoms, anxiety disorders and healthy controls will be compared with regard to their ability to regulate anxiety, sadness and anger. The project will involve conducting experiments in which negative emotions are induced and testing the effect of different ER-strategies on emotions, psycho-physiological reactions and symptoms. In addition functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) will be employed to test whether difficulties in down-regulating distressing emotions are associated with stronger activations of corticolimbic structures including PFC and amygdala.Knowing whether individuals have difficulties in regulating their emotions in the pre-phase of a psychotic episode, understanding why these difficulties occur, and testing whether specific strategies are useful to prevent symptom increase is crucial in order to know which skills should be targeted in therapeutic interventions. The outcome of this project will therefore provide a substantial foundation for follow-up studies in prevention research and in the field of real-time fMRI studies on ER.