The physiological hypothesis of affective aging

情绪影响健康、幸福、社会关系和决策。如果我们要干预以情绪为基础的问题，了解大脑和神经系统如何产生情绪是至关重要的。然而，我们对情绪生物学的了解大多来自于对年轻人（30岁）的研究，从成年早期到成年晚期，情绪会发生重大变化。迄今为止，大多数研究都集中在老年人改变动机或认知能力下降如何改变情绪上。这项研究调查了大脑和神经系统本身的生物老化是否会通过降低情绪时身体感觉的强度来改变成年人的情绪。考虑到人口迅速老龄化和情绪疾病的上升，了解影响成年人情绪的生物过程对我们的国家和世界都是至关重要的。该研究还将为研究生和本科生进行心理学、生理学和统计学的跨学科STEM研究提供重要的教育影响。这项拟议的研究将心理学理论与测量大脑活动、外周生理学（如心率、皮肤电导）和现场和实验室情感体验的技术进步相结合，以了解大脑和外周神经的衰老是否与情绪变化有关。一项针对90名成年人（18-80岁）的大规模横断面研究将评估日常生活和实验室中情绪期间大脑（即结构和功能连接）、外周生理（即自主神经系统活动）、体验（即情绪强度）和行为（即情绪调节成功、基于情绪的决策）之间的联系。先进的统计技术，如网络分析和纵向时间序列分析将被用于了解不同年龄的参与者的大脑，身体和情感之间的联系。了解大脑、身体和情感之间的联系，可能会提高我们对成年人的身体和心理变化的理解。它还可能为情感相关疾病和脑功能统计建模领域的应用进展提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Emotions impact health, well-being, social relationships and decision-making. It is crucial to understand how the brain and nervous system create emotions if we are to intervene in emotion-based problems. Yet most of what we know about the biology of emotions is from the study of young adults (30 years old) and there are important changes in emotions from early to late adulthood. Most research to date has focused on how older adults’ changing motives or declines in cognitive ability alter emotions. This research investigates whether biological aging of the brain and nervous system itself changes adults’ emotions by reducing the intensity of bodily sensations during emotions. An understanding of the biological processes that contribute to emotions across the adult lifespan is essential for our nation and world given a rapidly aging population and an uptick in mood-based illnesses. The proposed research will additionally provide important educational impacts for graduate and undergraduate students to conduct interdisciplinary STEM research uniting psychology, physiology, and statistics.The proposed research integrates psychological theory with technological advances in measuring brain activity, peripheral physiology (e.g., heart rate, skin conductance), and emotional experience in both the field and lab to understand whether aging of the brain and peripheral nerves is associated with changes in emotions. A large-scale cross-sectional study of 90 adults (aged 18-80) will assesses the link between the brain (i.e., structure and functional connectivity), peripheral physiology (i.e., autonomic nervous system activity), experience (i.e., emotional intensity) and behavior (i.e., emotion regulation success, emotion-based decision-making) during emotions in both daily life and the lab. Advanced statistical techniques such as network analyses and longitudinal time-series analyses will be employed to understand the linkage between brain, body, and emotion across participants of different ages. Understanding the linked role of the brain, body, and emotion may improve our understanding of how both the body and mind change across the adult age-span. It may also inform applied advancements in the areas of emotion-related illnesses and statistical modeling of brain function.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.