Emotion regulation develops as a process of neural specialization

• In Event: Novel perspectives on the neurodevelopment of emotion regulation

Abstract

While much prior work suggests that emotion regulation abilities change during adolescence, developmental neuroscientists have only recently begun to elucidate the neurodevelopmental processes that support these changes. Initial findings on the neurodevelopment of emotion regulation revealed that steep age-related improvements in emotion regulation occur during adolescence and are supported by maturing connections between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex. In the present presentation, we will build on these initial findings by presenting evidence that emotion regulation unfolds across development as a process of neural specialization. We will further argue that examining neural specialization might facilitate decomposing neurodevelopmental features that are respectively associated with chronological age and emotion regulation ability. To this end, we will present two sets of results derived from a sample of 70 typically developing youth (8-17 years). Youth in this study completed a cognitive reappraisal task, which involved think about aversive photographic stimuli differently so as to reduce negative affect, while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Emotion regulation ability, indexed by the percent decrease in self-reported negative affect on reappraisal trials versus emotion baseline trials, was modestly but significantly associated with age (r=.377, p<.01).
In this presentation, we will leverage neuroimaging data from the aforementioned study to examine neural specialization related to emotion regulation in youth in two ways. First, we will discuss recently published data examining how spatial specialization – indexed by Gini coefficients, a metric typically used to assess income inequality in macroeconomics – to quantify how voxel activation patterns are distributed across the lateral prefrontal and parietal cortices during emotion regulation. Results from this approach reveal that youth who show selective or “specialized” activation in lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) are more skilled at emotion regulation than youth who display more non-specific patterns of activation (effect of lPFC specialization on reappraisal-related negative affect = -.013, p=.049; Figure 1). Given that lPFC supports cognitive control processes important for reappraisal, lPFC specialization may reflect a growing ability to deploy cognitive resources toward emotion regulation in development. Second, we will present new data that combines network neuroscience approaches with machine learning to parse the neural underpinnings of chronological age and emotion regulation ability. These data examined the extent to which several features of functional connectivity differed during reappraisal versus emotional baseline to estimate “connectivity specialization.” Based on three types of connectivity metrics derived from multiple whole-brain networks, we found evidence that chronological age and emotion regulation can be reliably dissociated. Specifically, connectivity specialization within the Control Network (comprised of dorsal prefrontal and parietal regions) and the Default Mode Network (comprised of dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex and lateral parietal cortex) were each strongly associated with emotion regulation ability, even after controlling for age (connectivity metrics accounted for 16.59% of unique variance). Across networks, metrics of connectivity specialization were more tightly associated with emotion regulation ability than chronological age. Together, these results suggest that emotion regulation development unfolds as a process of regional cortical and whole-brain network specialization during adolescence.

Authors

• Jennifer Silvers, University of California - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author

• Joao Guassi Moreira, University of California, Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katie McLaughlin, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author