Understanding the mechanisms of emotion differentiation
Date
2023
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Emotion differentiation (ED) is the ability to make fine-grained distinctions between relatively similar internal emotional experiences. Deficits in the capacity to differentiate negative emotions (NED) have been linked to poorer mental health. However, much remains unknown regarding the mechanisms of NED, including the specific processes that lead to low NED, how NED is implemented in the brain, and the intermediate mechanisms by which NED confers vulnerability for pathology during adolescence. ☐ To provide crucial insights into how low NED emerges, Studies 1 and 2 examined the neural correlates of NED using a novel fMRI task that simulated different components of NED in a sample of young adults. Study 1 examined the relationship between neural activation in regions supporting generation of affective experiences and labeling/recognizing these experiences and a behavioral measure of NED. Study 2 examined how task-dependent changes in the connectivity of brain regions associated with affective experience and those linked to labeling/recognizing relate to a behavioral measure of NED. Study 3 further probed the neural processes supporting NED using metrics of white matter microstructure derived from diffusion-weighted imaging. Lastly, Study 4 investigated the manner in which NED ability is related to internalizing pathology in adolescence by examining the relationships between NED, emotion regulation, and psychopathology in an early adolescent sample. ☐ In Studies 1 and 2 we found that NED is related to activation and connectivity, respectively, of dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and anterior insula. In Study 3, we found that white matter microstructure of right anterior thalamic radiation, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, and peri-genual cingulum is related to NED. Although we did not detect any significant associations among NED, emotion regulation, and psychopathology in Study 4, we suggest that these associations do not develop until later in adolescence. ☐ Results across Studies 1-3 indicated that NED relies on the context-based generation and modulation of emotion, the ability to compare/predict and become aware of feeling states, the extent to which affective information is integrated with self-referential meaning of the emotional experience, and the integrity of white matter pathways subserving these functions (i.e., affective experience, memory, and semantics). Together, the findings from these studies suggest mechanisms that explain how NED emerges and have implications for intervention targets to increase NED capacity.
Description
Keywords
Brain activation, Brain connectivity, Diffusion imaging, Emotion conceptualization, Emotion differentiation, Emotion generation