Neural networks in bottom up 'experiential emotion regulation'.
Emotion regulation influences how and when we experience emotion, impacting our sense of self and well being. While previous brain research on emotion regulation has focused on gray matter correlates of emotion regulation, this study represents a first exploratory study on white matter integrity of brain networks of 'emotional approach' as a bottom up experiential emotion regulation-strategy. Responding to the gap between cognitive and affective approaches of emotion regulation, pertaining to some of the daily emotional stressors, the present study investigates brain pathways of individual differences in 'emotional approach', or the tendency to affectively acknowledge, understand and express emotional experience (cf. [1]). Diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI-MRI) measures of fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusion (MD) evaluated dispositional emotion regulation in a group of 21 women with a 'high emotional approach' (HEA) (N = 11) and a 'low emotional approach' (LEA) (N = 10). HEA exhibited more FA of the cingulum, supporting emotion processing and emotion regulation, whereas LEA correlated to a higher FA in the right corticospinal tracts, supporting automatic action tendencies and a higher FA in the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), supporting cognitive control and monitoring of emotion. LEA also correlated with an increase in MD in the body (p. = 0.05) and in the splenium of the corpus callosum (CC). A higher FA in the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (IFL) may indicate higher visual- affective integration within emotion processing, whereas more MD in the body and splenium of the CC decreases interhemispheric integration of emotional information within emotion processing and emotion regulation.
['Vandekerckhove|Marie|M|']
D000328:Adult D016880:Anisotropy D000073537:Biological Variation, Population D001921:Brain D003337:Corpus Callosum D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging D000080103:Emotional Regulation D005260:Female D059907:Functional Neuroimaging D006179:Gyrus Cinguli D006801:Humans D008032:Limbic System D008875:Middle Aged D009434:Neural Pathways D017397:Prefrontal Cortex D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires D000083382:Uncinate Fasciculus D055815:Young Adult
Emotion pathways dispositional emotion regulation DTI white matter.