Conte Adolescence Center: Project 4
Neural Bases of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation in Adolescence
PI: Richard J. Davidson
Predoctoral trainee Diane Stodola and Summer Fellow Michelle Fox pilot a new study's fMRI protocol using the 3T MRI scanner.
This project examines the neural bases of emotion regulation and dysregulation in samples of adolescents selected on the basis of their risk status for internalizing disorder. Adolescent is a period during which risk for anxiety and mood disorders increases substantially and little is known about the brain mechanisms responsible for vulnerability to these disorders.
We will take advantage of extensive data collected within two longitudinal cohorts that will be a central feature of this Center. From these cohorts, three samples will be tested. One sample consists of 85 individuals from Project 2 who underwent fMRI scanning using virtually the identical tasks when they were 14 years of age. A second sample, also derived from Project 2 (Essex), includes participants who are selected to vary in levels of basal cortisol early in life (age 4.5 years) and later in early adolescence.
In another cohort derived from Project 3 (Goldsmith) monozygotic twin pairs with varying degrees of concordance or discordance for internalizing symptoms are tested. All participants undergo a scanning session during which functional MRI will be obtained while participants engage in an automatic emotion regulation task that probes the degree of recovery following a negative affective stimulus. In other related research, we have found that individual differences in recovery following a negative elicitor to be especially sensitive in predicting a wide range of real-world outcomes.
During scanning, electrodermal and pupillary measures are obtained, in addition to eye tracking. In addition, participants are administered an automated version of a task designed to assess working memory capacity (O-span) to ascertain the relation between individual differences in working memory capacity and emotion regulation.
We will test the hypothesis that adolescents selected to be vulnerability to internalizing disorders (either because of cortisol profiles or symptoms of anxiety) will exhibit evidence of the poor emotion regulation expressed as high levels of amygdala activation and low levels of activation in ventromedial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices during the recovery period.
The findings from this project will provide novel new evidence on the neural bases of emotion regulation and dysregulation in adolescence and will showcase the role of these processes in vulnerability to anxiety and mood disorders.